Falling Skies premiere, The Killing finale, Christopher Heyerdahl in True Blood, and a few more updates

Falling Skies returns tonight at 9 pm on TNT with a two-hour season premiere, season two of The Killing ends at 9 pm on AMC, Christopher Heyerdahl makes his first appearance in True Blood (HBO, 10 pm), and there are new episodes of Continuum and Longmire.

First stop, Falling Skies. Luciana Carro and Ryan Robbins will be recurring this season, and other than the showrunner, three BSG/Caprica writers -- Mark Verheiden, Bradley Thompson and David Weddle -- worked on season two.

Rémi Aubuchon (showrunner) and the cast have been doing interviews left and right in recent weeks. Jim Halterman talked to him about the new season. You can read the interview at The Futon Critic. Snippets:

Jim Halterman: Having watched the first few episodes of the second season - and not taking anything away from the first season - I felt like things were sharper and tighter.
Remi Aubuchon: Steven [Spielberg, Executive Producer] is very terse and concise in his direction and basically what he said was 'Look, I want you to amp up the second season.' And I think that what a lot of that comes from is us deciding that we've set the backdrop, we've established the foundation of the story now let's just go with it and I think you can feel that energy in the second season.

Friday updates: previews, new projects and interviews

The usual Friday round, with more updates coming later this weekend.

Mary McDonnell has joined both Twitter and Facebook this week. Hit the links to follow her.

If IMDB is anything to go by, Hiro Kanagawa makes an appearance in tonight's episode of Fairly Legal, "Ripple of Hope." He will also be appearing in Robert Redford's upcoming thriller The Company You Keep, as "FBI Agent Kanagawa."

Deadline reported this week that Grimm writers are already working on the show's second season, which might be premiering sooner than expected, in August. Here is the synopsis for tonight's episode:

Nick (David Giuntoli) and Hank (Russell Hornsby) are called to investigate the mysterious death of a wealthy matriarch, after her stepdaughter loses everything in a Ponzi scheme. Meanwhile, Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) does some digging into the mysterious death of Nick’s parents in an effort to help him find closure. Silas Weir Mitchell, Sasha Roiz and Reggie Lee also star.

And a clip, introduced by Sasha:

Tuesday round-up: Blood & Chrome, Sanctuary, cast news, interviews with Jane Espenson, William B. Davis and Patton Oswalt

Okay, some updates.

It's Tuesday, so keep an eye on Beginning of Line. A new episode of Caprica season 2 goes up today.

There are a couple of things to check out on TV tonight. Patton Oswalt is on Conan at 11 pm on TBS, and on Chelsea Lately, also at 11 on E!

Deck the Halls with Luciana Carro and Hiro Kanagawa premieres at 9 pm on TNT. From the press release:

Holiday cheer turns to holiday fear when a private investigator’s father is kidnapped in TNT’s all-new original movie Deck the Halls, starring Kathy Najimy, Scottie Thompson, Jane Alexander, Larry Miller and David Selby. Based on the book by Mary Higgins Clark and daughter Carol Higgins Clark and the first in their series of holiday mystery novels.

A crackling good mystery with a warm holiday heart, Deck the Halls brings together two of the Higgins Clarks’ most popular characters: cleaning-woman-turned-amateur sleuth Alvirah Meehan, played by Kathy Najimy (Sister Act, Franklin & Bash) and private eye Regan Reilly, played by Scottie Thompson (Star Trek, Skyline). The women investigate the kidnapping of Regan’s father, Luke Reilly (David Selby – The Social Network, Dark Shadows), and a young female driver just before the holidays. The race is on to rescue the pair and get them home in time for Christmas.

TNT has released a sneak peek with Luciana Carro. You can watch it here.

Weekly roundup: cast updates, interviews, previews and new projects

A bunch of stuff has happened since the last update. Let's start with Caprica.

Caprica season two will resume on Beginning of Line with episode 14 (of 18) this Tuesday. Teresa Jusino posted this earlier:

There are 18 episodes total in Caprica Season 2 here at Beginning of Line. Episodes will now be posting every Tuesday between November 29th and December 27th. Just in time for your Solstice celebrations. :)

Anyone interested in writing an episode of season three (coming in 2012) or submitting fan art, hit the link.

Luciana Carro (Caprica's Priyah Magnus, Battlestar's Kat) has joined Twitter. You can follow her here: @LucianaCarro. These days, she is working on season two of Falling Skies, along with Ryan Robbins and a bunch of Caprica and BSG writers -- Remi Aubuchon, Mark Verheiden, David Weddle and Bradley Thompson. From their recent tweets, Luciana is playing a character called Crazy Lee and they recently wrapped filming episode four. Season two will most likely start airing in June.

On TV tonight:

Previews for Grimm & Psych, and new interviews with Luciana Carro, Jane Espenson, Sasha Roiz, Ryan Robbins, Scott Porter and Patton Oswalt

Since yesterday:

Spoiler TV has the promotional pics from the next episode of Hart of Dixie and Comic Book Resources has a new interview with Scott Porter. He mainly talks about the X-Men animated series, which premieres on October 21. Snippet:

This version of the X-Men story is a very modern one that Warren Ellis initially wrote with a lot of influence from his "Astonishing X-Men" run, but the one twist that brings in the classic thread for Cyclops is that the series starts just after the death of Jean Grey at the end of "The Dark Phoenix Saga." What was it like to pick up the character after the worst tragedy in his life?
That made it completely interesting for me. To allude to why I have such respect for Cyclops, it's because he's been through hell. He's lost Jean how many times now? He has to control this odd band of misfits who are under constant duress by the universe. He is ultimately powerful and has to always rein this power in or he could level cities with it. Seeing the control that Cyclops has to have and then seeing him in a very vulnerable position at the start of this cartoon where he just doesn't care anymore and is more careless with his powers. He wants to hang it up and quit. That's a very emotional place for the character, and then he falls back into his natural role where he's always been the leader because the X-Men need him. You really see all that here.

Caprica panel at the Toronto Comic Con - longer clip

Verbalbrew.com has uploaded a longer video with Magda Apanowicz and Luciana Carro from the Toronto Comic Con to YouTube. All three parts embedded below:

Alessandra Torresani and Luciana Carro at Big Apple Comic-Con NYC Oct. 16-18

Alessandra Torresani and Luciana Carro will attend the Big Apple Comic-Con in New York next week, along with several other familiar names from the Battlestar 'verse: Michael Hogan, Aaron Douglas, Rekha Sharma and Mark Sheppard.

The biggest Big Apple Comic-Con & Video Game Expo ever is preparing to hit New York City on October 16-18 at Pier 94 in Manhattan, W. 55th Street & 12th Ave. Now a part of Wizard World, this convention will feature the biggest celebrities of movies, TV, comic books, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, rock & roll, baseball, boxing, MMA, pro wrestling, modeling, and pop culture.

For the announcement and a complete list of celebrities who will attend, visit Fanbolt.com.