Blood & Chrome and general updates

Eventful week. To play catch-up:

The big news that every site reported in a slightly different way is that Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome will be a digital series and a TV film, but not a TV show, at least not one produced by Syfy/Universal Cable Prods. You have probably read the Deadline article by now.

With the possibility that Universal may still shop B&C around, it doesn't sound like they have any immediate plans to make more of it beyond the existing pilot/web series/MOW.

No word yet on a release date, but Battlestar Wiki reports that we'll be seeing Blood & Chrome as a web series first and then as a TV movie.

Doug Drexler posted this the other day (full post at the link):

If sets had been built for this show, it would have cost 6 million easily, instead of only the 2 million it did cost, and I guarantee you it never would have had the scope that B&C has. CG got us a new exciting Galactica episode that looks amazing. I know that 54 out of 55 of you will be thrilled.

I won’t address why things happened as they did with the Network. I’m indebted to them for allowing us to make Blood And Chrome. The bottom line is always money.

The trailer that was leaked last week and got pulled just as it started going viral is still available on a bunch of sites (io9 among others). You can't really fully appreciate it, though, until you've downloaded the 50 MB version and seen it at quarter speed. Pretty sure that there are six Caprica actors in it.

Here is what some of them have been up to recently:

Brian Markinson and Mike Dopud will both be appearing in Continuum, along with Richard Harmon and Tahmoh Penikett, who has recently been spotted on the set. Here is some info about the show:

Continuum [is] an original one hour drama-action series about a policewoman from 2077 who travels back in time and teams with a present day cop to track down escaped convicts from her future. Continuum is slated to premiere in Canada on Shaw Media’s specialty channel, Showcase in spring 2012.

When a group of fanatical terrorists escapes their planned execution in the year 2077, they vault back in time to the year 2012, sweeping dedicated CPS Protector, Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols), along with them. Stuck in the past and unable to get back to her husband and son, Kiera concentrates on bringing down the terrorists before they can wreak havoc in our present. Kiera receives unexpected assistance from a teen tech genius Alec Sadler (Erik Knudsen). Impersonating a member of local law enforcement, Kiera also forms an uneasy alliance with her detective partner Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster).

“We’ve been excited about this show from the day Simon Barry told us the story,” says Reunion Pictures Tom Rowe. “It’s attracted a lot of terrific talent on both sides of the camera. Shaw Media shares our belief that smart writing, a great cast and a highly creative production team will bring us all success.”

Starring Rachel Nichols (Criminal Minds, Alias) Victor Webster (Castle, Melrose Place) Erik Knudson (Jericho, Scream 4) the cast also includes Stephen Lobo (Smallville, Little Mosque On The Prairie), Roger Cross (24, The Gates, Fringe), Lexa Doig (V, Stargate SG-I), Omari Newton (Blue Mountain State, Sophie), Luvia Petersen (The L Word), and Terry Chen (Combat Hospital).

Continuum premieres on May 13 on Showcase in Canada.

You can find some new pics from In No Particular Order with Ben Cotton and Mike Dopud on Facebook.

John Pyper-Ferguson showed up in The Firm 1x11, "Chapter Eleven," which aired on Saturday. If you missed it, the episode is available on NBC.com.

Die was finally released on DVD in the U.S. yesterday.

There were several other unannounced appearances last week. One of the kids in The Secret Circle hallucinated the ghost of Hiro Kanagawa in episode 1x17, "Curse," and Kacey Rohl guest starred in Supernatural, in "The Born-Again Identity." Both episodes are available on Hulu.

Kacey is currently filming a Lifetime movie called Taken Back, starring Sanctuary's Amanda Tapping as a crazy mom who thinks she found her long lost abducted daughter.

Aleks Paunovic has posted some pics from the set of his new Lifetime movie (with David Hasselhoff), called The Christmas Consultant, on FB.

The Hunger Games with Paula Malcomson has beaten a few box office records over the weekend. THR has the report.

The tickets for the production of Frost/Nixon with James Marsters at the James Bridges Theatre (UCLA) next month are on sale. You can get them here.

Global Saskatoon has the first (?) production still from Rufus with Richard Harmon.

Flicka: Country Pride (Flicka 3) with Kacey Rohl and Teryl Rothery will be released on DVD & Blu-ray on May 1. High-Def Digest has the details.

TV Guide has an exclusive Falling Skies video that includes interviews with Rémi Aubuchon, Mark Verheiden, Bradley Thompson and David Weddle:



TV Equals had an interview with Esai Morales last week, mostly about Fairly Legal:

On what can we expect from D.A. Aaron Davidson this season
Esai Morales: Uh, dastardly-ness. I am a politician, district attorney. I am a bit of a quintessential, slimeball. Sleazebag is how I’ve been described, which is kind of interesting.

On whether he likes being the villain
Esai Morales: Well, yes, I was the good guy in Caprica, with kind of an ambiguous moral compass. And on this one, it’s an arc, he’s not a regular, but the more I do it, the more regular he feels. And, it feels nice to not have to dumb myself down too much. Or play this guy or that guy and the thug and I bemoan the fact that oftentimes people of my background don’t have opportunities to show any intellect, to show any heroics. It’s the four h’s of Hispanic Hollywood that I refer to. We’re either overly humble, “please senor, we’re a poor people. Please senor gringo, please helping to us.” Or overly hormonal. “Oh, you are so beautiful. Come with me to the casbah.” Overly hysterical. “Lucy! Oh! [speaking spanish].” Or overly hostile, “what you looking at sucka?” But outside of that you don’t really see much of our folk in mainstream, just regular people. It’s always like, oh yes, let’s add him on, we’ll add spice to the story.

New Straits Times has a new interview with Sasha Roiz. Snippets:

“I wouldn’t categorise Renard as a bad guy, although some of his actions are questionable. I think he is more complex than that. He just has his specific agenda and like everyone in the Grimm’s world, perspective of what is right and wrong. Renard wants to keep a certain power in order — both in the regular world and the subterranean world. We will eventually see why.”
Is he a Grimm creature?
“No. He is someone who can control and command the creatures in that universe, or exert his influence over them. So you won’t see me transforming into some kind of creature. And since he only reveals himself to a certain (half-human) characters, his real personality rarely comes out and that’s why you can’t really pinpoint whether he is good or bad. He is a man of many secrets.”

Grimm is coming back this Friday with a new episode. Here is a preview:



Like Grimm and Husbands, Once Upon a Time will be getting a second season. Assignment X has a new interview with Jane Espenson. Snippets (about Husbands):

ASSIGNMENT X: What made you guys decide that you were going to do another season? When did you make the decision?
JANE ESPENSON: We started talking about that a couple months ago, I’d say around New Year’s. We started thinking that we wanted to explore more. We kept thinking of new episode ideas. Cheeks and I would be sitting over a restaurant table, saying, “Oh, you know what would be a funny thing …” or, “If Cheeks and Brady had this waiter, Cheeks would say this and Brady would say that.” And it just became clear that there were more stories to tell, so we decided to keep going, and we realized during the run of the first one that the Web really was the right home for this project, so we wanted to keep it there. We can do the kind of content we want to do on the Web and we discovered we like not having people above us giving us notes on it. We really could make the show what we want it to be.

AX: Were you expecting the kind of national and political response that HUSBANDS has received?
ESPENSON: We were expecting none of this. There have been a couple of things that have really surprised us. One was that the New Yorker reviewed us, because they don’t review Web series. We didn’t see that coming at all and that really did raise us to a national level, which we hadn’t expected, but was fantastic. The other thing we didn’t expect was the response on Kickstarter that we’ve gotten. We’re now on Day Three and we’ve got 83 percent funded [at the time of this writing, it has gone up to 84 percent.]

At the time of this writing, Husbands season two is fully funded. You can still make a donation on Kickstarter. The campaign will be up until April 18.

Whedonopolis has a couple of video interviews with Jane and Cheeks from WonderCon. You can watch them here.

Blogcritics.com has a four-page interview with Jane, mostly about Husbands and Once Upon a Time:

Are all the characters we've come to love in season one still on board?
Oh yes. Cheeks (Brad Bell), Brady (Sean Hemeon) and Haley (Alessandra Torresani) are going to be back, along with Jack Russell Mix the dog (Beau the dog).
Any new characters/actors joining the series—or putting in guest appearances?
Yes! We want to open up the world a bit, and bring other people into the mix. Look for some great new characters, but our young couple is always going to be at the center of the show.
When will the second season premiere?
This summer! Not long at all!
Who will be directing the webisodes?
Jeff Greenstein will be back as well!

And Digital Chick TV has posted an interview with Jane & the Husbands from the New York Comic Con.



More updates later this week.