Tag: TV Series

The ‘Inhumans’ TV Series Has Casted Their Black Bolt!

by The_acz

What we originally thought would be a shoe in role for Vin Diesel is no more. Marvel has found their Black Bolt for the Inhumans TV Series.

Anson Mount, known for his role as Cullen Bohannon on AMC’s Hell on Wheels.  For those not aware of what’s happening with Inhumans still, here’s a quick rundown. Marvel will release a TV Series based off Inhumans this Fall. The first 2 episodes will be released in limited release in IMAX this September, and will then continue on ABC. Are you interested in this series? Who would you have casted as Black Bolt? Tell us in the comments below!

 

WonderCon 2014: ‘Salem’ Panel

by Kari Lane

The subject of witches can be a tricky one. The word “witch” can bring up all kinds of pop culture images such as: the Wicked Witch of the West (Wizard of Oz), broomsticks, scary/ugly women over a caldron (Macbeth), cute girls (Sabrina the Teenage Witch), and so on. There have been many films with witches as the subject but not too many television shows. Well, now there is Salem on WGN America. The show has gained so much attention and is doing so well that it has already been renewed for a second season after being on the air less than a month (3 episodes)!

Salem2

“Set in the volatile world of 17th century Massachusetts, Salem explores what really fueled the town’s infamous witch trials and dares to uncover the dark, supernatural truth hiding behind the veil of this infamous period in American history. In Salem, witches are real, but they are not who or what they seem.”

While at WonderCon, I attended the Salem panel where we saw the first twenty-five minutes of the pilot episode a couple of days before it aired. However, a few scenes were cut out of our screening because it was just too graphic (violence and sex) for an all ages panel. The audience laughed when the blank screen came up during the episode and laughed even more when the blank screen was up for an apparently long scene. They did warn us about the graphic nature of the show and, during one scene, a few parents with kids made their way out of the panel room. Everyone else liked what they saw of the pilot! The screening was followed by executive producers Adam Simon and Brannon Braga, along with series star, Shane West, talking about the show.

Salem1

Simon started talking about the inspiration behind the show by asking, “Who doesn’t love Salem? Who doesn’t love witches?” He went on to mention how we all know some of the history of Salem but there is still much that has not been explored. Braga mentioned, “What uncharted territory this was…” explaining that they delved into the transcripts from the time and those reveal way more weird stuff than has been shown before. Now, you could make a show where the witch hunters were just a crazy mob or you could approach it as if witchcraft was real. Simon explained that at the time, “…everybody believed in witches” and the producers and series creators wanted to “…show the world as they [the people of Salem] perceived it”. West plays a character who is not a believer. He told the audience that his characters would “…react like most of you would react” and that his character is basically the “audience POV”.

 Salem4

You can check out a series trailer below!

 

NBC Orders Pilot For ‘The Sixth Gun’ TV Adaptation

by Shawn Madden

NBC has committed to a pilot for Cullen Bunn’s The Sixth Gun, a sci-fi western graphic novel series that is set during the Civil War era that puts a gunslinger up against dark forces with an innocent girl’s soul sitting in the cross hairs. The pilot will be jointly spearheaded by producer Carlton Cuse (Lost) and screenwriter Ryan Condal (Hercules: The Thracian Wars).

 

6th-gun-inside

 

The comic, created by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt, is described as follows:

 

“During the darkest days of the Civil War, wicked cutthroats came into possession of six pistols of otherworldly power. In time the Sixth Gun, the most dangerous of the weapons, vanished. When the gun surfaces in the hands of an innocent girl, dark forces reawaken. Vile men thought long dead set their sights on retrieving the gun and killing the girl. Only Drake Sinclair, a gunfighter with a shadowy past, stands in their way.”

 

Source: EW

‘The Walking Dead’ Webisodes Return October 1st!

by Shawn Madden

Just like with season two, AMC will be releasing webisodes prior to the start of the third season of The Walking Dead with a four part series titled “Cold Storage”. Starting on October 1st we will see the first of four five-minute epidoes that will reveal a new group of characters, actor Daniel Roebuck who you may be remember as Dr. Arzt on Lost, will play one of the key roles.

Cold Storage tells the story of a young man, Chase (played by Josh Stewart), trying to reach his sister in the early days of the zombie apocalypse. He finds temporary shelter in a storage facility run by a former employee named B.J. (Roebuck); however, things are not what they appear.

Last seasons webisodes told the story of the ‘bicycle girl’ that Rick encountered in the premiere episode of the series. So, do you need to catch up on season two? Well, it was also just announced season two of The Walking Dead will be made available on Netflix streaming on September 30th. Get your popcorn and couches ready guys.

Source: USA Today

Here’s The Story Of A Lovely… ‘Brady Bunch’ Reboot!

by Scott Alminiana

These days movies and television are all about rebooting everything. If you needed further proof of this just turn on your TV and look at shows like Hawaii Five-0 and 90210 or movies like the upcoming Total Recall. Hollywood truly is all about remakes.

Get ready for the latest reboot! TV’s favourite family The Brady Bunch is the latest show to get the reboot treatment. Deadline is reporting that CBS is developing the reboot and it’s being co-developed and executive produced by Vince Vaughn. The original Brady Bunch was created by Sherwood Schwartz and it ran on ABC from 1969-1974.

In the new Brady Bunch, written by Mike Mariano (Raising Hope, My Name Is Earl), a divorced Bobby Brady, with children of his own, is remarried to a woman who also has kids, and together they also share a child. In addition, their ex-spouses are still part of their lives. The changes in the premiere reflect the evolution of family dynamics over the past four decades. Back in 1969, Schwartz wanted Carol to be a divorcée but the network refused, so the end of her first marriage was never addressed.

Lloyd Schwartz, the son of Sherwood Schwartz, will executive produce the reboot along with Vaughn, Victoria Vaughn and Peter Billingsley through Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Picture Show Prods.

SDCC 2012: Stan Lee’s World Of Heroes

by Matt Blackwood

Stan Lee announced the lineup of his new World of Heroes YouTube channel on Thursday, and despite being about as diverse as you can get in tone and style, every show does seem to fit Lee’s mandate of showing a “different side of herodom.”

Here’s the lowdown:

Geek Therapy
A scripted show starring America Young as a shrink specializing in nerdy neuroses.

Fan Wars
A sort of People’s Court in which Judge Jace Hall presides over fan debates such as who would win in a fight between the Avengers and the X-Men. Viewers will recognize the format from Lewis Black’s late Root of All Evil. The courtroom setting differentiates it slightly from the Nerdist channel’s Tournament of Nerds.

Bad Days
What happens when Batman locks his keys in the Batmobile? Find out in this series of bite-size cartoon vignettes showing all those times things don’t go quite right for our favorite heroes.

Geek DIY
Craftswoman extraordinaire Bonnie Burton (“Admiral Sackbar”) invites famous friends to join her as she takes on new fan-related projects.

Stan’s Rants
Stan Lee gets all up in your face to let you know exactly what he is thinking about a current development in the comics world and beyond.

Academy of Superheroes
A reality competition show in which aspiring real-life superheroes (yes, really!) learn everything they need to know from celebrity guest instructors.

SuperFans
Adrianne Curry visits and interviews real fanboys and girls around the country whose obsessions have taken over their lives and homes.

Chatroom of Solitude
Jeff Lewis, Phil Lamarr, and others portray supervillains who communicate (squabble and talk trash) over Skype. The hilarious highlight of the previews. NSFW.

Super.Model
An action series about a fashion model with super powers.

Head Cases
Peter David is still writing this sitcom he describes as Cheers with superheroes.

Expect ‘The Walking Dead: Season 2’ From Telltale Games

by Shane O'Hare

Today we got some nice juicy details confirmed by Steve Allison, Telltale Games VP of Marketing . In a recent interview with Polygon he stated:

“Following the digital release of our fifth episode we will also be coming to North American retail shortly thereafter and this will not be the last The Walking Dead game series that we do.”

So, if you are the kind of person that doesn’t like watching a show as it comes out week to week and would rather have the DVD boxed set at the end of the day, do not fear! The entire Season 1 of The Walking Dead game will show up as a collected works not long after the last episode is released.

This is fantastic news! The Telltale Games version of The Walking Dead has been praised as the best version of The Walking Dead out there by our fearless leader and myself as well. They are really putting all of Telltales talent towards making a really slick game.

When asked about the Activision shooter set in the same universe Steve was quoted saying

“Regarding today’s announcement of a project based [on] the AMC TV series coming in 2013,” Allison said, “as huge fans of the franchise and the show, we’re looking forward to seeing Terminal Reality’s game when it comes out.”

‘The Walking Dead’ find its Michonne

by Matt Blackwood

Tonight’s season 2 finale of AMC’s The Walking Dead finally introduced the television audience to comic fan favorite Michonne. Actress Danai Gurira (The Visitor, HBO’s Treme) portrayed the enigmatic katana-wielder in a cameo appearance and will expand the role in season 3. Can Tyrese be far behind..?

TWD's Michonne and Gurira

 

Zachary Quinto New Male Lead On American Horror Story

by Eric Diaz

So season two of American Horror Story on FX has just added their second returning cast member from the first year, as it is confirmed by Deadline.com that Zachary Quinto (who guest starred on a handful of episodes last season) will return to the show this year as the male lead. Instead of a haunted house in Los Angeles, the location for season two will instead by a haunted hospital on the east coast. This is the second cast member from year one coming back to the series, as it was previously confirmed that also returning to the show is Jessica Lange, who will be playing an all new part as well.

American Horror Story producer Ryan Murphy was very wise to keep Jessica Lange, the show’s most versatile actress. And they were just as smart to keep Quinto, whose star is certainly on the rise lately with the Star Trek movies. The anthology format allows these actors to show the same audience their acting range by playing different parts.

It should be noted that the double bill of openly gay Quinto and beloved-by-her-LGBT- fanbase Lange has officially made American Horror Story  THE gayest show on television. Yes, even more than Murphy’s own Glee. Hey Murphy, why not add Cher to the cast next season? And yes, I’m totally serious. You know it would be fabulous.

Love and Xena: Warrior Princess

by Molly Mahan

Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite days of the year, and I mean that. I love checking in on my various social networking sites and looking at which topics are trending and seeing that “Valentine’s Day” is #1 and that 99% of those comments are people crying about how horrible a day it is or how we need to not talk about it all together. No other holiday—even Christmas—causes so many people to revolt and scream in anger of a single day. It amazes and confounds me, for what else in life is more deserving of celebration than Love? And I don’t just mean romantic love, but all forms of love. People are afraid to talk about love—even say the word—for fear that someone might be confused of the meaning. Perhaps it’s because in the English language there is a lot of ambiguity about love and what it can mean in a context. For example, I love my family and I love the music of Stevie Nicks, but neither in a romantic way nor in the same way. It is also possible that we live in an emotionally stunted and immature culture that fears a person may misunderstand what you meant when you said, “I love you, man!” and give your buddy a good, old-fashioned side hug.

Unlike in English, Greek has three words for love. There is “eros,” which is sexual, physical love, where we get the word “erotic”; there is “phileo”, which is friendly, nonsexual devotion, from which words like philosophy and Philadelphia find their origins; and there is “agape”, the love you hear about at weddings when they bust out the Bible and read 1 Corinthians 13 to you.  Agape can apply to a lot of things—friends, family, an ideal—it’s basically the kind of love you have when you’re willing to sacrifice yourself for the continued existence of something or someone else.

I think the reason why I love Love so much is because I am, as you know, a hardcore Xenite. Always have been and probably always will be. Although when I was a kid I was much more into evil, badass Xena, and had no idea until I was in high school how campy, ridiculous and non-serious the show was. Don’t judge me, I was six and humor went over my head—some might argue that it still does—so all I saw was a badass chick and her annoying sidekick kicking ass and telling the people of Greece what for. That said, I was still being indoctrinated with the fundamental story about Xena, which surprisingly isn’t about redemption or the greater good (both fundamental quests the hero is on), but about Love.

Hello, Ladies. You can call me Cupid, though Eros would be more geographically accurate. Just call me.

Now, I’m going to say this outright: I never believed that Xena and Gabrielle were lesbians. To this day, I maintain that they are soulmates but not sexual lovers. Although I can understand where people might see that (even might have needed it to be the case in the 90s), it was never something I saw and it was only toward the end of the show that the writers and actors even admitted to the possibly of there being some sexual subtext (previously in articles and interviews it was never the case and definitely not something the creators intended) and now (possibly due to the fact that the bulk of their remaining fans are homosexual, or to a more accepting culture) some writers claim that they are “married without the stupid piece of paper”—just like at least half of the XenaCon goers who couldn’t be married because of prop 8 and other legal mumbo jumbo. As a heterosexual female, I have always been much more interested in Xena’s relationships with Ares, Caesar and Hercules. Not to say I can’t read or watch about LGBTQ characters—I am a fan!—but the fact I found Gabrielle obnoxious probably didn’t help make me want her to be romantically linked to her, either.

Can’t two straight women bathe together without anyone acting weird about it?

                True story: when Gabrielle “dies” during the season 3 finale, “Sacrifice pt. 2,” I looked every day in the newspaper for casting calls for Xena’s new sidekick. You know, because that’s where I thought casting calls would be. I was 9, don’t judge me too harshly. But that’s how badly I wanted to be Xena’s sidekick and how much I thought everyone else hated her and so believed the creators offed her like Jason Todd, never to return. Come the season 4 episode “Family Affair,” I learned I was wrong. Come Judd Winick’s run on Batman and I learned I was wrong about Jason, too. Sigh, being a geek is so hard.

                But this article isn’t about whether they are or they aren’t or why I hate(d) the Battling Bard of Potediea, it’s about how Xena shaped my understanding of reality and made me recognize that nothing is more important than Love and it is worthy of praise. By the way, I love the fact that a show about an ancient Greek warrior princess has the same message as hippies and flower children.

                Season 4 opens with an awesome two-part episode known as “Adventures in the Sin Trade.” It’s awesome because it’s pre-reformed Xena being evil. The basic plot is that Xena goes to the Amazon’s land of the dead to talk to her gal pal. Along the way, we find out that one tribe of non-Greek Amazons (those she hung around with while she was still in power lust mode and whoring around with Borias) have been banned from entering, due to a curse laid on them by the super evil, super scary shamaness Alti (and pretty much evil Xena’s fault, too). They don’t understand it, because their holy word should have been enough:

                Xena: Then maybe you need a new holy word, one stronger than the last.
                Cyane: Our holy word is ‘Courage.’ Nothing’s stronger than courage.

And so it becomes Xena’s duty to undo the dark magic by fighting Alti in a literal spiritual battle. Along the way we learn that Gabrielle’s not dead, due to a dark vision of the future given by Alti where the two are nailed on crosses side-by-side. “Who’s the blonde?” Alti asks. “She represents what can defeat you,” helping Xena to discover the new holy word that will save the amazons: Love.

This is not the first, nor the last, time Love as an ideal saves the day. In the musical episode, “The Bitter Suite,” Xena and Gabrielle go on a musical odyssey to deal with the damages they have both caused in their relationship and each other (the episode actually opens with Xena hurling Gabrielle off a cliff). The third and fourth acts are a physical manifestation of the heroines’ resentment and hatred for each other—the complete destruction of their friendship from the season 2 finale to that point—playing out in musical form in the songs “War and Peace/Gab is Stabbed” and “Hate is the Star” (which seriously begins with Xena shouting, “Hatred! That’s what we’re fighting”).

But Xena, if you kill me, we’ll have to sing about it for 40 minutes!

It is only when Xena admits that she lied about assassinating Ming Tien (in the aptly titled “Yes, I Lied”), tells the deceased Solan (who is the pure manifestation of love) that she is his mother and asks for both of them to find it within their heart to forgive her that they are able to get out. And since this show is unable to be subtle about anything: when they do forgive her, the phantom manifestations of all the big bads from previous seasons explode. Xena and Gabrielle are then able to leave the musical land of Illusia and head back to Greece and continue their journeys (Solan can’t come, ‘cause he’s DEEEEEEEAD!).

So while our protagonists are learning about the magic of friendship and the importance of love, conversely our villains are out to destroy and hate. In fact, it is those villains who discover the power of love that eventually become good guys. Xena’s original archnemesis Callisto says in her eponymously titled episode, “Love is a trick nature plays to get us to reproduce.” In season 5, when archangel Xena (shut up) takes pity on her and cleanses her damned soul, she is born a new with the power of love and light and becomes an angel. And later her spirit is inserted into Xena’s womb and becomes Eve who then goes evil, but is later good after he conversion to the Xena love cult. Oh the things creative comes up with to deal with a star’s pregnancy!

Joe Starr would still tap this. Too bad he has insufficient mana.

Similarly, Ares, god of war (and sex appeal), goes evolves from heel to face over the course of the show, as his power lust wanes to a desire to be with Xena and fight by her side (“I rather die in your arms, then live without you in mine”). He may be the god of war, but it’s not as if Xena’s quest for peace and the greater good is without, you know, physical violence.

Hanging out with Lady Love herself, Aphrodite

Other characters that turn bad to good through the power of love: Markus, Draco

Characters that fail to see the light and die horribly: Velasca, Alti, Caesar, Hope

Turns out Gabrielle was right all along when she was giving those preachy speeches about love in the early seasons.\

Not bad, kid.

Love conquers all is a standard theme in storytelling. According to Tim Rice and Elton John, “Every story is a love story … All are tales of love at heart,” so even if it is not the only theme it is prime. As previously stated, not all stories of love are romantic, sexual or even between people. A girl can love her horse and their partnership leads to their fleeing oppression and coming to a new world, a man can build a baseball stadium for his love of the game, etc. What’s consistent in all these stories is that the hero loves, while the villain hates. Even if the hero starts out as bitter, he will eventually realize that he’s been wrong about this love business all along and start loving, too.

So stop being a villain when it comes to Valentine’s Day. Xena managed to overcome her hatred and animosity, so can you!

 

 

The Week In Geek: Star Trek May Return To TV, American Horror Story, Plus Vampires & Slayers

by Eric Diaz

 

Bryans Singer and Fuller To Bring Back Star Trek To TV?

I’ve mentioned in this column before a few times in recent weeks how writer/producers Bryan Fuller and Bryan Singer are working on a Munsters reboot for NBC, now re-titled Mockingbird Lane. But these two might have more than just the Munsters in mind for television, and in fact are hoping to possibly collaborate on a new television incarnation of Star Trek in the near future.

Both Singer and Fuller are huge Trekkers; Singer even has a cameo in Star Trek: Nemesis as a random helmsman, and before producing cult series Pushing Daisies and Dead Like Me, Fuller got his start as a young staff writer on Voyager and Deep Space Nine. In late 2005, after Star Trek:Enterprise was cancelled, ending an eighteen year run of non stop Trek on television, Singer had his longtime friend and fellow writer/director Robert Meyer Burnett come up with a detailed pitch for Paramount for a new Trek show called Star Trek: Federation. Federation was set in the year 3000 to a vastly changed and declining United Federation of Planets. Singer and Burnett’s  proposal took into account how television storytelling had changed since the glory days of The Next Generation, something that Enterprise ultimately failed at. When Paramount decided to let the franchise rest on television for a while and reboot the series on the big screen instead with JJ Abrams’ film, Singer dropped pursuing his pitch. However, it’s been seven years since all that…could Singer and new colleague Fuller be reviving this idea?

My personal opinion is that while Singer and Burnett’s pitch for Federation is exactly what the franchise needs for television…now is probably not the time to do it. The movie franchise was only recently re-launched, and the first sequel does not arrive till next year. I say Let JJ Abrams and crew wrap their new Trek trilogy, and then maybe in say, 2016 (the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek) they could bring back the series to television and people would welcome it back with open arms after such a long absence.  The world of television is in major flux right now anyway, with the cost of shows growing and the viewership shrinking, and Netflix and the like becoming a new venue for showcasing new television series. Waiting a bit longer allows for the dust to settle in the television world AND whets the appetite for more television Star Trek among the general public.

 

Jessica Lange Returns To American Horror Story


Something else I mentioned in this column a few weeks back was the news that FX’s new hit series American Horror Story would effectively reboot every season, with a new haunted location and a new cast of characters and actors each time. But series producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have made at least one concession about returning former cast members, as Jessica Lange is confirmed as returning for the second season.  

Jessica Lange was easily the show’s most valuable player, as her acting elevated the show’s sometimes cheestastic and over the top craziness to something resembling really good Grand Guignol theater. American Horror Story also got Lange a much deserved Golden Globe recently, and it would be foolish of the producers not to capitalize on Lange’s talent and buzz for as long as possible. Not much else is known yet about season two of the show, which isn’t set to debut until October. But FX released one promo image for the second season this week, which seemingly suggests not a haunted house, but a haunted hospital instead. I guess we’ll all find out just what location is haunted, as well as what other cast members will be returning, when the show comes back in the Fall.

 

Anne Rice’s Lestat Might Return To The Big Screen

For the last few years, as the vampire trend has spread through Hollywood like wildfire (or herpes) there has been one very noticeable omission: The Vampire Lestat, and all the other undead denizens of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles series of novels.  But it looks like that might change very soon, as Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment has bought the rights to Anne Rice’s fourth Vampire novel The Tale of the Body Thief. Author Anne Rice announced the news on her Facebook page this week that Imagine has acquired the rights to Body Thief, and hired writer Lee Patterson, who wrote a well-regarded screenplay titled Snatched, to write the script. Producing with Imagine are Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the writer-producers behind  Fringe, Star Trek and Transformers. Say what you will about this particular writing duo, but just about everything they work on eventually gets greenlit.

While it might seems strange to effectively reboot a film series using book number four in the cycle, Tale of the Body Thief is more or less a stand alone story that only really references characters and events from the first novel Interview with the Vampire, which was already successfully made into a movie. In the novel, Lestat is killing serial killers in Miami (kind of like a vampiric version of the television series Dexter) and grows bored of existence and tries to end his life, only to find that he can’t actually die. When approached by a mortal psychic who claims he can switch bodies for a brief time and Lestat can gain his mortality back, Lestat jumps at the chance, even when the titular body thief makes off with his powerful body and he has to track him down and get it back.


Unlike the two previous installments in the Vampire Chronicles, The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned, which both have a huge cast of characters and move around in time a lot, Body Thief is a pretty linearly straight forward story that would be far easier to make into a two hour movie than the previous two books in the series. I still maintain that the first three books of the series would make for a great cable series though. Please, someone in Hollywood get on that soon.

Buffy Makes A Controversial Choice, Gets Headlines In The Process

And  while we are on the subject of vampires, arguably the most famous vampire slayer of all time, Buffy Summers, made media headlines this week for probably the most unlikeliest of reasons. SPOILERS for Buffy from here on out folks- In Joss Whedon’s current comic book continuation of the series for Dark Horse Comics (Season 9 to be precise) Buffy has found out she is pregnant. In this past week’s issue, Buffy mulls over her options about what to do with her pregnancy, and ultimately decides to get an abortion.  It isn’t a decision Buffy comes to lightly, and it is handled extremely well by writer Andrew Chambliss and series creator Whedon.


Of course, just because Buffy is planning on getting an abortion doesn’t mean she’ll be successful at it though. The character of Buffy seems convinced the father is any number of men she could have had sex with (but conveniently doesn’t remember) back in a raging house warming party in issue #1 of Season 9. However (again-SPOILERS) I would be genuinely shocked if the father of the baby is anyone other than long time vampire love Angel, whom Buffy had sex with at the end of Season 8 while both characters were in this mystical God-like state (don’t ask) Yes, those events were supposed to take place a good six months prior to the where the comic storylines take place now, but who is to say how long mystical pregnancies are supposed to last? And do you really think Joss Whedon would have the father of Buffy’s baby be some new character the readers have little emotional investment in, or have the father be none other than Buffy’s greatest lover/enemy?

Of course, if this really does end up being just  “A very special episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer” where she gets an abortion and just has to deal with the consequences in a real life kinda way, then the father just might be a nobody. BUT…if indeed the baby can’t be aborted somehow and she is forced to have it, then I stick to my theory that the father is none other than Angel. If I’m right, then you heard it here first fellow geeks.

DC To Launch Smallville Season 11 In Comic Book Form

Taking a cue from Dark Horse Comics’ previously mentioned continuation of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer tv series, DC Comics is looking to continue the long running (ten frickin’ seasons) television series Smallville with a comic book version of Season 11. The Smallville television series ended with the Tom Welling version of Clark Kent finally wearing the cape and tights of Superman, making some longtime rabid fans of the series really happy. Seriously, just watch this one fan watch the Smallville series finale around the five minute mark-I’ve never had an orgasm this intense. 

Although previously rumored to be a series of prose novels, DC Comics have officially announced a “Smallville Season 11” comic book series this past week, which will be published digitally beginning April 13 with a new issue every week. The series will also be collected in print beginning in May. Series scribe will be Bryan Q. Miller, a former writer and story editor from the TV series, as well as former writer of the Stephanie Brown version of Batgirl which ended last year before the big DC reboot. The current plan is to pick up some six months from where the show left off, with Clark finally embracing his role as a public super hero. As part of the press release, Miller said “I couldn’t be more excited to help give seasoned viewers and new readers an all-access pass to Clark’s first year in the cape.”

Smallville is certainly the most popular version of Superman in the media since the Christopher Reeve version, so continuing that version of the character seems like a no-brainer to me. My question is-which of the new DC 52 Earths is “Earth-Smallville?” And will Supes ever wear the red shorts or not? Because ya know, I find that I kinda miss those.


 

Things That I Learned From Chuck – A Nerd Herd Manifesto

by Landoman


“For us, the originality of the show clearly spoke to those individuals out there in the audience who also felt unique and original. And the final thing I’ll say is it was the story of a guy who felt he had all this potential but never lived up to it. A guy who felt he had the promise to be something better than he was when we first met him. This underdog, this nerd, who’s thrust into this life and lives up to it and becomes a hero spoke to people. A lot of people saw themselves in Chuck, and want to believe that if given their own opportunity they could also become a hero.” – Josh Schwartz, Co-Creator of Chuck


 

 

A Quick Summation of What Chuck Meant To Me aka The Reason For This Article Existing

Chuck is a show about an underachieving 25 year old guy who receives an email from an old college friend that contains tons of U.S. secrets, imprinting them into his brain and giving him “flashes” whenever he sees something from the Intersect in his head. Two government agents named John Casey and Sarah Walker are then assigned to be his handlers, but throughout the course of the series, become his friends. For five years, it combined romance, drama, comedy and action in a way that I’ve rarely seen attempted in a network show, let alone done well.

I’ve seen every episode of Chuck, some multiple times, some only once, but once Chuck finished it’s run recently, I didn’t really know what to do with myself. Where would I go to be happy, sad, angry, giddy, all the while being on the edge of my seat… every week? Where would I go for the awesome pop culture references that seemed like they were made just for me? Where would I go to reinforce my belief that there’s true love out there for every nerd, even if it may not come in the form of a beautiful CIA handler like Sarah?

Now was the time to face my own quarter-life crisis and become the hero that my friends and family always knew that I could be! I knew Chuck would have said, “don’t freak out!” so let’s start there…

 

Lesson 1:  “Don’t freak out,” or How To Channel My Emotions 

As Chuck’s handlers Casey and Sarah learned during the course of the series, Chuck is very emotional. Many a time during the series, Chuck’s emotions hindered missions, sometimes even ensuring the mission’s failure. As Chuck grew as a person and as an agent, this flappability began to change. Chuck came into his own as he burned an asset, became a handler himself, and began to formulate missions and lead a team of spies rather than always being delegated to the spy van. Part of this change involved Chuck being more realistic and more focused on the missions as his personal life began to fall into place, and part of this change involved him taking a more active role in the spy world.

For me, the journey from emotional man-child to a grown up is still in progress, but I’m taking some cues from Chuck along the way. I’m learning to use my ability to empathize to understand other people better and try to see the other side of arguments. I’m also learning to focus my energies better at work and in my personal life so that I can use that emotion to make even the most mundane things seem important.  

As a teacher, why just make standard lesson plans when you can guide students on epic adventures through literary analysis? Why simply describe two teenagers trying to fix a mess they created instead of engrossing students in a tale of two outsiders trying to save kids from a towering inferno about to burn down the church that was their safe haven? The more genuine and focused my emotion gets, the more the students will be able to see the merit of these stories and being able to analyze and use the skills they learn in class to interact with their world around them in a more substantial way. Instead of just being passengers in their own life, they can take the wheel and steer.

With regards to my personal life, I’ve always prided myself on being a good friend. That used to mean I would drop everything to be with as many friends as possible, spreading myself so thin nobody felt they were getting 100% of me. Being a good friend doesn’t mean you have to go overboard to impress people. Just be there for them. I simply needed to channel my emotions to be what my friends or family needed, whether it was a voice of reason, a devil’s advocate, or a distraction. I’m finding that my closest friends and family are noticing that the change in my emotional stability means that my ability to say no to people has increased, making it easier to just relax, take my time, and be a good friend.

 

Lesson 2: I Shouldn’t Always Be Content To Simply “Stay in the car, [like] Chuck!” But Believe In My Own Creativity

Much like Chuck, I have an almost childlike trust of others, which can be boring as I have always wanted people to like me and thus usually did what I was told. But why should I just be boring and “Stay in the car!” as Chuck’s handlers Casey and Sarah told him to in the beginning of the series? I’ve learned that I can help the “mission” and can try something new that might not have as wide an appeal to others but that I may love.

This new attitude has led me to try several creative projects this summer like making a clay maquette of Voldemort for a friend, dressing up like Lando Calrissian for Comic Con, and even starting a musical story of my life experimenting with different genres. I even had the pleasure of meeting up with Zachary Levi, Joshua Gomez, Mark Christopher Lawrence, as well as Isiah Mustafa, Olivia Munn, and Danny Pudi! I would have never gotten the chance to meet these people at this year’s Comic Con if I weren’t actively trying to step outside of my comfort zone.

I’ve also become more engaging as a teacher because I understand what may have helped me to learn certain lessons does not always work for others and that’s perfectly okay. Chuck didn’t force Casey or Sarah to change throughout the series. He was, as the quote from Gandhi says,  “the change [he] wish[ed] to see in the world.” There’s nothing wrong with using my own experiences to relate to students in a way that’s new for both of us, instead of just using the same old teaching practices that have been accumulated like an Intersect that all teachers should follow. Chuck’s not your average spy, so why should I be your average teacher?

 

Lesson 3: “True Love” Is Not a Fairy Tale, But There’s Someone Out There For Us All

The hopeless romantic in me takes the series’ ending as a chance for the couple to fall in love again as Sarah continues her life with Chuck. With that in mind, Chuck’s romantic entanglements did not always include Sarah and Sarah alone. When we meet Chuck at the beginning of the series, he has been pining for his ex-girlfriend Jill, and as Sarah enters his life as his handler, becomes his girlfriend as a cover. The next season Chuck develops real feelings for Lou the sandwich girl, and “breaks up” with Sarah, in order to pursue a “real” relationship. Unfortunately, that relationship doesn’t work out and after things get complicated with Sarah, there was Hannah, a girl that Chuck dumps in order to get back together with Sarah. Chuck genuinely had feelings for these girls and wanted things to work out with all of them, even if he subconsciously or in Hannah’s case, consciously, cared deeply for Sarah at the same time. Ultimately, he was able to slowly help Sarah realize she loved him back, get married, and get the happy ending he so richly deserves.

I haven’t always had the most luck in love, but I don’t want to go through life thinking that my ability to feel is my Achilles heel. I’d rather it be an asset that will help the right girl fall in love with me. While I’m Chuck’s age now, I am starting to realize that the less I actively look for a girlfriend, the more likely I will be to find one. Along the way, much like Chuck, I have had a long-term girlfriend who ended up not being the one, and a few girls that I dated for a while, but each of these relationships taught me a little more about what I’m looking for and what I need in a relationship as well. When you have your own life in order and you don’t need someone to complete you, someone can step in and simply add to your awesomeness and make you even better. Eventually, I have faith that somewhere out there there’s someone who will like me for me, which brings me to my final lesson.

 

Lesson 4: There’s Truth To The Saying “Always Be Yourself”

Chuck has had many roles throughout the course of the show: unofficial Nerd Herd commander, The Piranha, Rafe Gruber, The Analyst, The Intersect, Charles Carmichael… but the biggest role that Chuck plays is Charles Irving Bartowski. In fact, the best Chuck episodes were when he didn’t even have to use the intersect to save a mission. He simply used his latent geek skills. After all, Chuck is an awesome show not because he is a spy a la James Bond, but because he is a spy a la Chuck Bartowski. He chugs wine when hacking into government computers. He uses a tranquilizer gun when he has a vast arsenal at his fingertips. And he always thinks with his heart.

While sometimes this frame of mind may have left him vulnerable at times, it also infused the show with a sense of relatability uncommon to most network shows these days. You simply care more about his hero’s journey because he makes choices you’d like to think you would make in the same circumstances.

Speaking of the Intersect, remember the episode where Chuck took the emotion suppressing drug and was finally able to use the Intersect on command? As part of my quarter life “crisis”, I’ve at times suppressed my emotions to be someone that I’m not. I am guilty of thinking that my emotions and empathy for others was a weakness instead of one of my strengths. Luckily, I’ve begun to realize that trying to be more Charles Carmichael than Charles Bartowski might get me more girls or more single serving friends now, but being myself might actually bring me lasting happiness.

So in Closing…

Over the last five years, I have realized that being a hero in my own life means realizing the potential that I had all along, instead of relying on a perceived crutch or false identity to reach my potential. I don’t need an Intersect or a million dollar Volkoff fortune. I just need to believe in myself, as cheesy as that sounds. My friends and family have always known my potential and have pushed me to reach for it instead of settling for the best that I could get through easier means. I’m glad that I’ve grown secure enough to finally listen to them. And as the sun sets on this chapter of Chuck’s life, I’d like to think that my story is just coming up over the horizon, with plenty of lessons still left to learn.

 

Nerd Herd Employee of The Month: Pravin Kaipa