It looks like The Sci Fi Channel is pretty pleased with itself this week, especially since the premiere of the Amanda Tapping series Sanctuary delivered (what I’m gathering) great ratings for the cable network. I liked what I saw of the show’s 2-hour premiere, but I have to admit, I kind of tuned out and back in every now and then throughout the episode. The show seemed to lag for me at times, and although it had a nice premise, and it’s great to see Tapping weekly again, I don’t know, I think Sanctuary could stand some retooling. For one, make it move faster, pick up the pace. In short: less talk, more action.
“Battle: Los Angeles” is definitely one of those movies I’m looking forward to, mostly because the idea behind it sounds so good, and there’s a lot of opportunity for sequels if the original does well. Can you imagine, “Battle: Dallas”, or “Battle: New York”? We would get to see the battle from different perspectives, while keeping the overall plot (alien invasion of Earth) in the background. The first movie, “Battle: Los Angeles” is supposed to be about a platoon of Marines fighting alien invaders on the streets of L.A.; they could make another movie about civilians in one city, cops in another, etc. Or hey, how about a specially train group of feds in another city? The possibilities of endless.
Well this is certainly good news for TV sci-fi fans — the FOX network, notorious for yanking shows before they’ve even been given the proper time to gestate in the public consciousness and pick up steam, has given J.J. Abrams’ new show Fringe a full first season order, which means no matter what happens, fans of Fringe will get a full season’s worth of their TV show. Of course, FOX could always end up screwing the pooch later on, as they did with Firefly by destroying the show’s cohesion by broadcasting episodes out of order, or the way they did with the underrated Space: Above and Beyond, which FOX shuffled across the schedule so much that it was nearly impossible to figure out when the episodes would even air.
Even more promos from Joss Whedon’s upcoming Fox show Dollhouse (starring Eliza Dushku as a kick-ass heroine) for you to take a gander at. As far as I can tell, J.J. Abrams’ Fringe is doing pretty well on the network, which bodes well for Whedon’s Dollhouse. What’s not doing so well? Fox’s The Sarah Connor Chronicles seems to be heading toward cancellation. Hopefully Dollhouse will be more Fringe than The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but knowing Fox, the network will have a very short leash when it comes to their more expensive shows, and Dollhouse should be pretty expensive to produce, I would imagine.
Yikes. As if dragging Superman’s origins out for the last eight years wasn’t bad enough, the WB is now prepping a TV series based on the early life and times of Robin The Boy Wonder, aka Batman’s sidekick. But wait, it won’t be like any Robin you’ve seen before (which goes without saying, right? This thing is on the WB, after all), and the first hint that this Robin will be a barely recognizable shell of his comic book self is the name: yes, they’ve given Dick Grayson a nickname. DJ. Dick Grayon will now be known as “DJ” to his buddies. I shit you not. But then again, from the network that gave us a reboot of Beverly Hills 90210, Gossip Girl, and a relentless army of crappy teen melodramas as envisioned by 40-year old men, I guess we shouldn’t be too surprise. 
The knee jerk reaction to the very idea of someone doing a sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 seminal piece of sci-fi, “Blade Runner”, is grave concern. After all, you don’t get to be as important a work of fiction as “Blade Runner” because you’re middling; you get to be where you are — aka greatness — precisely because you were so damn great in the first place. As such, when a screenwriter announced that he was writing a script for a “Blade Runner” sequel at a recent screening of “Eagle Eye”, a lot of people got into an uproar. My initial reaction was to feel offended; but then I thought, “Well, he’s talking about a sequel, and NOT a remake, as is the fashionable thing to do in Hollywood nowadays, so that’s the lesser of two evils.” And even if the sequel sucks by comparison to the original — doesn’t most sequels suck by comparison to originals, anyway?
In Episode 3 of Supernatural’s fourth season, we finally get to see where Dean Winchester gets his coolness, when arch angel Castiel (Misha Collins) gives him the opportunity to go back in time to meet his parents (Matt Cohen and Amy Gumenick) just as they’re falling in love. So will Dean use the opportunity to save his mother, who is destined to die at the hands of the Yellow Eye Demon? And would doing so change everything — for the worst? 
Oooh, now this is an intriguing little concept for a TV show: everyone in the world blacks out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, and during that black out, they all get a mysterious vision of the future that changes their lives, and the world, forever. Now I guess the only thing to do is try to figure out what it all means? Or something like that. The project comes from two very notable genre names — former Star Trek head honcho Brannon Braga and movie screenwriter David S. Goyer, who recently penned the ginormous hit “The Dark Knight” for Christopher Nolan. Maybe you’ve heard of it? The two also previously worked together on the short-lived CBS show Threshold, another show I liked, that never got much of a chance by the network.
Okay, so I’ve been hearing about this new show Warehouse 13 for a while now, and I’ve been writing about it, but I have yet to actually see an episode of this thing. From what I’m hearing (they’re calling it a “dramedy” now), it sounds very much like a new, 2008 version of the short-lived UPN X-Files clone Special Unit 2. If that is indeed true, then yeah, I’m going to like this, as I was a fan (maybe the only one?) of SU2’s unique brand of wacky humor, barely credible storylines, and just general hijinx that requires, first and foremost, a major suspension in disbelief to enjoy. Warehouse 13 seems to be something like that. Maybe.
It looks like NBC isn’t pulling any punches, or skimping on the goodies, as they approach their relaunch of the new Knight Rider TV show. They’ve put the entire first episode of the regular series online ahead of the show’s September 24th debut, and you can watch it right now, right here (scroll down to the video below). See? Who says there’s nothing good on TV. Or, er, online right now.