Category: tv

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Deal with it: Legend of Korra was the #1 scripted show on cable last week

Nickelodeon has a hit on their hands. Legend of Korra may have been beat by the NFL Draft and Pawn Stars in the ratings last week, but it was still cable’s #1 scripted program last week with 4.08 million viewers.

Yes, more people watched Legend of Korra last week than Game of Thrones, which had a not-at-all-shabby 3.9M viewers. Of course, Game of Thrones is on a premium channel and Nickelodeon is basic cable, but still… I’m damn impressed.

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Gate Geek: New Stargate project teased

Fandom insanity is at fever pitch after a producer teased an upcoming Stargate project at the Creation Stargate convention over the weekend.

Darren Thomas is apparently affiliated with an app development company and said the announcement would be made at San Diego Comic Con.

Michael Shanks and Ivon Bartok took things up a notch by teasing each other on Twitter about what the project really is. But they have since clarified that if it’s a live action type thing, neither of them has been contacted to be involved.

Since it’s an app development company, I’m not confident it will be much beyond a comic thing at most. But it’s nice to have something new in Stargate.

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Other worlds: Major SF/F publisher going DRM-free

Big news for e-book lovers. The parent company of Tor, one of the biggest SF/F publishers, announced today that they’re going to make their ebooks DRM-Free. This is a pretty big deal – and it looks likely means we’ll likely see more cross-polinating on the existing readers. But I’m no expert – you’ll want to check in with folks like John Scalzi and Charles Stross.

Oh, e-book lovers? Don’t be this asshole.

On another note, I swear I’m almost done, you really, really want to go and buy The Price of Stars for $2.99. I have an entire post to write about the Mageworlds series, but who knows if it’ll still be on $2.99 then? $2.99!

Awards. I am shamefully late in writing about the Hugo Award nominations, for which I apologize. The novel nominees include George R. R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons, Mira Grant’s Deadline and Jo Walton’s Among Others, which I gushed about back in the Nebulas. There are plenty of other familiar names in the media categories (Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, even Community) but the news that made waves was that the blog SF Signal is up for best fanzine. They were so excited that they made an infographic. NERD PARTY! No, seriously, it’s pretty neat.

On a shoestring! SyFy is going to adapt Stephen King’s fantasy novel Eyes of the Dragon and I predict it will try very hard to look like Game of Thrones. Meanwhile, over at Vulture, Gilbert Cruz ranks all 62 of King’s books. His #1 is one of my favorite, can’t-miss novels.

Upcoming. N.K. Jemisin starts a new duology. This may be the thing to finally tear me away from my second Mageworlds reread in a month.

Also… Stop taking this picture – Drew Karpyshyn signed for fantasy trilogy – Wedding invitations with a Hitchhiker’s theme – Jim Hines follows up his viral recreation of women on book covers by posing like the men.

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Other worlds: Game of Thrones returns Sunday with S2

The night is dark and full of terrors. The second season of the hit series based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire debuts tomorrow! (I’m so excited, even though I can’t actually remember where A Clash of Kings ends and A Storm of Swords begins.) Among the must-reads is this interview with showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss. There’s also been a lot of attention paid to the shows’ female characters. And is the mainstream finally paying attention to fantasy? Well, sort of.

If you want to gorge on more Thrones news, reviews, and interviews ahead of the premiere, head over to the dedicated fan blog Winter is Coming.

Authors behaving badly. Christoper Priest, author of The Prestige, is not very happy with the Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist. Take it, Cleolinda.

Preach it. I haven’t been much impressed with his books, but I think Patrick Rothfuss hits things right out of the park on how fantasy needs to move past aping the Tolkien elves-and-dwarves formula.

The Hunger Games. Everyone loves it! Except the people who somehow missed that Rue was black in the book, and think that diminishes the character’s impact. (Um, spoilers.) Not enough facepalm in the world. Actress Amandla Stenberg said in a statement: “It was an amazing experience; I am proud of the film and my performance. I want to thank all of my fans and the entire Hunger Games community for their support and loyalty.”

Will The Hunger Games mark a sea change in Hollywood’s willingness to greenlight more female-lead action movies? The experts are skeptical.

And finally, here’s something not-so-serious: Capitol propaganda posters.

The Lame Files. Is 50 Shades of Grey taking fan fiction mainstream? Considering what what I got in my mailbox yesterday… Yes. Yes it is. Here’s a look back at the book’s fanfic past.

Also: Ten books every fantasy author should read – Why the Wheel of Time series is so long – Highlights in the history of space opera – Harry Potter genderswap – Stakes in fantasy novels – Why old books smell so good

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Leaked ‘trailer’ gets Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome plenty of buzz, but Syfy doesn’t want it on TV

A trailer for the upcoming Battlestar Galactica prequel series, Blood and Chrome appeared online earlier this week, but now it appears that the show, focusing on a young William Adama in the first Cylon war, isn’t going much further than being an online offering from Syfy, reports io9. Well, we might get the pilot shown on TV, but probably nothing else.

What’s up with the action-packed trailer? We get a lot of space battles, some gunfights and other action-y type special effects scenes, which seem to indicate that Blood and Chrome might be more action-oriented rather than the drama that BSG was. Deadline Hollywood reports that it was an unauthorized teaser that ended up being shown at WonderCon this past weekend, by BSG’s scientific adviser, Kevin Grazier. After appearing online, the teaser drew a lot of interest, as well as criticism, especially over the lack of a Bear McCreary soundtrack and recycling the Trent Reznor/Karen O cover of Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’ from the The Girl who fell facefirst into a tackle box With the Dragon Tattoo teaser. Someone else had already parodied that trailer, but didn’t bother with music rights: the Muppets.

Anyway, with the unauthorized teaser hitting the interwebs, NBCUniversal’s SyFy jumped out to put the cork back on the bottle, and started zapping it on YouTube (oops on unlicensed music!), and repeated that the show is not destined for TV beyond the 90-minute pilot. Looks like the show hit bingo fuel.

Or as Admiral William Ackbara might say: “It’s a frak!”

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Video: Super Best Friends Forever!

The first in a new series of shorts developed by Lauren Faust (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) featuring Wonder Girl, Supergirl and Batgirl premiered yesterday on Cartoon Network.

You might recognize the voices: Wonder Girl is played by Grey DeLisle (Azula in Avatar: The Last Airbender,) Batgirl is Tara Strong (IN EVERYTHING, including MLP:FIM, and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends) and Supergirl is played by Nicole Sullivan (Shego in Kim Possible.) Oddly, none of these ladies have been in The Clone Wars, though DeLisle did do voice Padme and Asajj Ventress in the Tartakovsky Clone Wars series, as well as some video game work, and Strong did a voice for The Old Republic.