America is to get its own version of Being Human

From SFX Magazine

America is to get its own version of cult BBC3 smash hit show Being Human. Syfy has ordered 13 episodes of the show about the house-sharing ghost, werewolf and vampire which will be made by RDF Media USA, currently best known for making US versions of reality shows like Secret Millionaire, How To Look Good Naked and Wife Swap. Now it seems Being Human is in for a culture swap.

The British series is produced by RDF subsidiary Touchpaper TV, and is currently filming its second series (though the cast has taken time out to record a Halloween message. A few years back, the BBC showed Syfy (or Sci Fi as it was back then) the script for the pilot of the British series, hoping to get the US network to come aboard as a co-funder, but the deal fell through.

“It turned out great as we can now do an American version,” reckons Syfy president Dave Howe. “We’ve always been keen on vampires and werewolves, and we loved the originality of Being Human, the fact that the fantastical creatures in it are very young, accessible and charming.”

Howe also stresses that Syfy will not “slavishly replicate the British version,” and sees it as a potential companion piece to Sanctuary, with which it shares similar subject matter.

‘Battlestar Galactica,’ ‘Terminator’ actors join cast of Dollhouse

Summer Glau

By James Hibberd – HollywoodReporter.com

This fall, “Dollhouse” is going to be a geek-TV haven.

Creator Josh Whedon has tapped actors from Fox’s recently canceled “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” and Syfy’s concluded “Battlestar Galactica” to join the show.

Most notably, he’s recruited “Terminator” fan favorite Summer Glau, whom he previously cast in Fox’s “Firefly.”

Glau plays Bennett, a Dollhouse employee who shares a secret past with Eliza Dushku’s Echo.

Also, Jamie Bamber (from “Battlestar”) will appear as a charismatic businessman who is Echo’s new husband.

Michael Hogan (“Battlestar” again) comes to Dollhouse hoping to stop a psychotic family member’s killing spree. Alexis Denisof (“Angel”) is a U.S. senator leading a witch hunt to track down the underground organization.

Jamie Bamber

Keith Carradine (“Dexter”) is a nemesis of Dollhouse leader Adelle.

Though “Dollhouse” struggled on Friday nights last season, the network hopes the notable guest casting along with some creative tweaks will help the show gain a broader audience.

Battlestar Galactica on Blu-ray

The Only Mission is Survival in Syfy’s premiere of SGU: Stargate Universe

By Michael Simpson – CinemaSpy.com

With only a few weeks to go before Syfy’s premiere of SGU: Stargate Universe, the channel has released new artwork to promote the series.

Alaina Huffman

The poster doesn’t give much away. It features three figures running and comes with the tag line ‘The Only Mission is Survival’. Color is used sparingly, which is in keeping with the glimpses of the show that have come in the teaser trailers. Also the poses of the three characters suggest an action-packed series, which is what Syfy has promised.

The fact that the female character on the poster is wearing a low-cut shirt is perhaps an inevitable attempt to create sex appeal. It may, however, also provide ammunition for critics of SGU, some of whom have already written off the show. Stargate Universe has been controversial since it was suggested that it would be aimed at a younger audience than Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. Since then there have been accusations that Atlantis was canceled to make way for SGU, that “non-white” characters in the show will marginalized and that a recent casting call that went out for an episode in the series was disrespectful to disabled people.

SGU: Stargate Universe has its two-hour premiere on Syfy on October 2 at 9 pm. From what we have seen, we think viewers should give it a chance.

In other Stargate-related news, it appears that ‘Stargate Worlds’, the massive multiplayer online role playing game based on the franchise, will survive the funding shortfall that had reportedly afflicted it developers. According to MMORPG.com, Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment  has received financial commitments that will allow it to complete its work on ‘Stargate Worlds’

Julia Benson as Lt. Vanessa James

This photo is of Julia Benson NOT Julia Anderson

Secrets Stashed in Sy Fy’s Warehouse 13

Kate O’Hare – The Oklahoman

On Tuesday, a popular cable network gets a new name and opens the door to a passel of mysterious artifacts and enigmatic relics.

With the two-hour premiere of “Warehouse 13,” SCI FI Channel becomes SYFY and shakes up its on-screen image, hoping to expand its audience even further beyond science-fiction fans.

“Warehouse 13” focuses on two Secret Service agents — Peter Lattimer and Myka Bering (Eddie McClintock, Joanne Kelly) — who save the life of the president and wind up transferred to a facility called Warehouse 13.

Located in South Dakota, the top-secret bunker houses a collection of bizarre objects, all under the care of Secret Service agent Artie Nielsen (Saul Rubinek), who answers to Mrs. Frederic (CCH Pounder).

“Everybody is a closet conspiracist,” says Jack Kenny, who executive produces with David Simkins. “We all want to think, ‘Oooh, there is all this stuff going on that we don’t know about.’

“And there probably is a bunch of stuff we don’t know about and probably don’t want to know about. We like the idea that there’s a warehouse out there that houses everything the government doesn’t know what to do with but needs to safeguard and protect.”

He also emphasizes that we’re not talking about alien bodies from Roswell or anything of that sort.

“We don’t want to go into alien stuff because it stretches the point of believability,” Kenny says. “Every one of these artifacts, we want to be absolutely viable.”

“The artifacts come from history,” Simkins says. “They come from science. They come from strong-willed individuals (like) Lucrezia Borgia. All the artifacts are based in reality.

“You could go to Wikipedia or Google and look this stuff up.”

Luckily for science-fiction fans, while the artifacts may not be from outer space, a few guest stars have worked there.

Among them are Tricia Helfer and Michael Hogan from “Battlestar Galactica” and Joe Flanigan from “Stargate Atlantis.” Others include Ivan Sergei (“Charmed”) James Naughton (“Gossip Girl”) and Erica Cerra (“Eureka”).

The show also promises a sense of humor. For example, there’s the purple goo.

“We get purple goo squirted all over us,” McClintock says. “The purple goo is a big story point. When we put an artifact into the purple neutralizer, it takes all its power away and makes it easier to transport.” 

The Special Effects Crew

Michael Innanen (Max Payne, The Incredible Hulk, Jumper) is the special effects supervisor

Laird McMurray (The Incredible Hulk, Dawn of the Dead, Cinderella Man) is the special effects coordinator

Shane Million (Assault on Precinct 13, Dawn of the Dead, Man of the Year) is the key special effects artist

Marcus Rait (X-Men, 16 Blocks, Chicago) is the special effects foreman

Sci Fi cops a remake of ‘Alien’ tale

By MICHAEL SCHNEIDER  – Variety.com

   Sci Fi is developing a new take on “Alien Nation,” the 1988 feature that previously spawned a spinoff series on Fox.

   “Angel” alum Tim Minear — no stranger to sci-fi tales, having worked on “The X-Files,” “Firefly” and “Strange World” — is penning the fresh take on the franchise. Fox 21, the alternative production arm of 20th Century Fox TV, will produce.

   “Alien Nation” centers on the partnership between a veteran cop and his alien detective partner, set against the larger tale of alien “newcomers” who move to Earth and attempt to assimilate into society.

   Fox 21 topper Chris Carlisle said he believed “Alien Nation” could rep the next franchise revival for Sci Fi, which found huge success in dusting off “Battlestar Galactica” and reworking it for today’s auds. Carlisle said “Alien Nation” works both as a sci-fi piece and a procedural drama.

   “It’s absolute perfect timing for this type of show,” Carlisle said. “They’re looking for more grounded sci-fi and close-ended episodes, and at the heart of ‘Alien Nation,’ it’s a cop movie. It’s grounded. And it has a tremendous amount of dramatic possibilities and humor.”

  Sci Fi is also looking to broaden its footprint, as it preps to rebrand itself as “Syfy” next week.

  “It’s very much in keeping with what we’ve been looking to do — find themes that are more than just hard sci-fi, something that feels contemporary and relevant and invites a broad audience in,” said Sci Fi original programming exec VP Mark Stern.

   The new “Alien Nation” would include a mythology that evolves over time and will also touch on some of the issues of the day, such as the immigrant experience and how society integrates an incoming culture.

Minear said he’s looking forward to incorporating a mix of all the different kinds of series he’s written in the past.

   “It’s genre mixed with procedural mixed with funny and mixed with big, giant scary,” Minear said. “I love serialized stuff, but this is also a cop franchise. That ‘Starsky and Hutch’/'Lethal Weapon’ buddy cop comedy is absent from TV right now.”

   Minear is currently busy outlining the “Alien Nation” script and mapping out the project’s mythology. The new “Alien Nation” will likely take place in the Pacific Northwest, and will take place about 20 years after the first ship of aliens – who have been banished as slaves – crash lands into Earth.

  By the time the show begins, some time in the 2020s, the alien population has multiplied from a few thousand to 3.5 million. And much of the “newcomers” live their own segregated existence, in what Minear compares to the North African ghettos in France.

   “You can take (the original ‘Alien Nation’) a step forward and really do a show that encompasses the clash of civilizations, and the idea of a ghettoized minority,” he said.      ”You can touch on racism, terrorism, assimilation, immigration. And there’s room for satire.”

   The original film, which took place in 1991, was helmed by Graham Baker and written by Rockne S. O’Bannon (with an uncredited revise by James Cameron). Mandy Patinkin and James Caan starred as alien cop Sam Francisco and his reluctant human partner, respectively; Terence Stamp also starred.

   In 1989, 20th Century Fox TV and Kenneth Johnson Prods. adapted the movie for Fox, with Eric Pierpoint and Gary Graham in the lead roles. The show lasted just a single season but spawned a series of books.

   The TV show was revived in 1994 as a series of telepics for Fox, starting with “Alien Nation: Dark Horizon.” Five TV movies were ultimately aired; the last, “Alien Nation: The Udara Legacy,” ran in 1997.

   Stern said Sci Fi had been looking at “Alien Nation” as a potential franchise for several years and had talked to several writers about ways to update the concept for modern auds.

“The challenge is how do you do it in a way that will reinvent it without it feeling like a derivative rehash,” he said. “We sat down with Tim, who is someone we’d been looking to work with for quite a while, and his approach felt like it wouldn’t be a traditional adaptation. We got excited.”

   Minear said he’d been anxious to develop for cable – and in particular, Sci Fi. The success of “Battlestar” fueled his interest in reviving “Alien Nation,” he said.

“Twenty years (after ‘Alien Nation’), TV as a whole has evolved, and you can explore issues and go deeper with subject matter than you ever could before,” Minear said. “On cable, you can play with ambiguity. This is a place I want to be.”