Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Here in America, anyway. Last weekend’s ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ was the most-watched telecast ever for BBC America. 1.6 million viewers tuned in, making it the series best rating for the show since it debuted on the channel in 2009. The show was also up 23% over the 2011 premiere.
Meanwhile, at home in the U.K., the premiere had 6.4 million viewers.
Awards. The Hugo Award winners were announced at Worldcon this past weekend. Taking Best Novel was Jo Walton’s Among Others, beating out George R. R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons and works by China Miéville, James S. A. Corey and Mira Grant. (Walton also won the Nebula for the book.) Other writing prizes went to Kij Johnson, Charlie Jane Anders, Ken Liu and more.
The dramatic presentation awards went to Game of Thrones S1 and Neil Gaiman for his Doctor Who episode ‘The Doctor’s Wife.’ (Gaiman took the opportunity to announce he’s writing another episode for the show.) Also noteworthy to us, SF Signal winning for Best Fanzine!
Tolkien. With Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit adaption now being three films, the second has been retitled The Desolation of Smaug, with There and Back Again now being the third installment. I fully expect it to contain at least an hour of various slow-motion endings. But seriously, it looks like there was a lot of hints dropped at DragonCon.
A Song of Ice And Fire. A hilarious Storm of Swords ‘It Gets Better’ PSA. Yes, of course there are spoilers. Or, you can read what GRRM has revealed of the Targaryen conquest of Westeros from the upcoming The World of Ice and Fire.
Lists. io9 picks fall’s must-read SF/F books and explores the mermaid trend in YA.
Records. The Hunger Games series has outsold Harry Potter – at least on Amazon.
Also: Ray Bradbury’s FBI file / Lev Grossman interviews Terry Brooks / Ursula Le Guin’s Noble Prize odds / Dark Tower adaption not so dead after all?
Don’t forget that the new series of Doctor Who starts up this Saturday with “Asylum of the Daleks”. The Doctor, Amy and Rory are back, and this time they’re headed to a place that even regular Daleks fear. For those in the US, Doctor Who starts up on BBC America on Saturday at 9pm/8c. Helping get us back into the timey-wimey mood, BBC has been posting a series of fun shorts, called Pond Life, focusing on Mr. and Mrs. Pond since we last saw them.
What does writer and producer Stephen Moffat have to say about writing his first Dalek episode? RadioTimes has his episode guide.
Also celebrating the start of series 7, Nerdist Channel has a few programs related for their Doctor Who-eekend: For wacky fun, the Doctor Who cast and crew takes on Chris Hardwick, Wil Wheaton and more in Chris Hardwick’s All Star Celebrity Bowling on Friday (preview here – “Bowling is cool”). On Saturday, check out the Doctor Who Premiere Q&A at 10pm/9c, with Chris Hardwick talking with Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Executive Producer Caroline Skinner after the premiere.
EDIT: BBC America just put up a new Her Universe Doctor Who shirt for sale, combining the logo and the Amy Pond introduction. Go check it out / buy it!
Somehow, this weekend, I suddenly became a Who watcher. Now, to finish S6 before this comes out…
In related news, it looks like the Ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston, will be taking on chief baddie duties in the Thor sequel.
It’s official! Her Universe and BBC Worldwide have hooked up to create a Doctor Who collection! The first four shirts feature the Tardis (of course) and a tribute to River Song. And the image Ashley revealed yesterday? It’s “a special Doctor Who logo just for female fans which will only appear on merchandise from the Her Universe collection.”
That certainly seems to be what Ashley is implying, posting the image at right to Twitter and Facebook this afternoon, promising “a MAJOR announcement” tomorrow. Unless you know another fandom that revolves around blue boxes traveling through space and time…
(No, I don’t think it’s Bill and Ted!)
We continue to look back at 2011 by looking at interesting fandom happenings outside of Star Wars.
Continue reading “2011 in Review: Happenings in other fandoms”
Just a reminder that Doctor Who returns this Saturday, with a look at a classic time travel trope in ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’. This start to the second half of the season is followed by the last ‘Doctor Who: Best of’ show: ‘Best of the Companions’. Check out this exclusive sneak peek of the new episode, or, if you’re not caught up on Series 6 yet, BBC America will be doing a marathon of the first half of the series before the new episode at 9 PM.
Also, in news that may only be exciting to Dunc and myself, The Venture Brothers returns on midnight on Sunday, August 28 with a special mockumentary on Hank’s band: From the Ladle to the Grave: The Shallow Gravy Story. The new 15-minute episode follows a VB marathon starting at 9:30 on [adult swim]. Crave more gravy? Get more info on Shallow Gravy EP from Amazon and iTunes. Go Team Venture!
It’s the last San Diego Comic-Con 2011 post, I swear! Here’s some different thoughts and recaps on what came out of Comic-Con this year:
And let’s end our wrap-up with a photo gallery progression of the artwork drawn on the Volkswagen Passat in the Star Wars pavilion by a Sharpie-wielding comic artist, Ken Lashley. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8.
I’ve just barely seen enough Doctor Who to name all the major players here, but this is a well-made and often flat-out hilarious fanvid. (via)