TV

“The X-Files,” the landmark science fiction television series created by Chris Carter, was built on elaborate conspiracies and a healthy dose of paranoia. The show premiered 20 years ago this year, but in many ways it still seems contemporary — and relevant. Speaking at the fourth annual Hero Complex Film Festival, Carter said he’s somewhat surprised to find that the show has a kind of resonance in the present era, but he feels that it did come along at the right historical moment. “It was of its time, it seemed to be right for its time, it sort of capitalized on its time,” he said. “You probably could make the show today, but I don’t know why, it feels like it was made exactly when it should have been made.” Watch the video above to hear more from Carter about his […]

“Star Wars” fans let out a collective howl of anguish earlier this year when it was announced that one of the casualties of Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm was the animated series “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.” But though that fan favorite series was canceled without a satisfactory conclusion, there’s still a chance to get an animation fix. Lucasfilm is now working on a new animated series, “Star Wars Rebels,” set to premiere in fall 2014 on the Disney Channel with a one-hour episode and then move to Disney XD. Set in the two decades between “Episode III” and “Episode IV,” the series will follow the adventures of the Rebel Alliance as they attempt to evade the growing might of the Empire. Simon Kinberg, writer of one of the upcoming “Star Wars” spinoff films, will serve as an executive producer of […]

“The X-Files” remains a moody and mysterious hallmark of science fiction television, even as the show celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. But amid the conspiracies and monsters-of-the-week, there were famously funny moments, too. The episode “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” from the series’ third season remains a high point in terms of showcasing the show’s ability to garner laughs, and it was one of three episodes showcased in a tribute to “The X-Files” that closed the fourth annual Hero Complex Film Festival in Hollywood. At the event, the show’s creator Chris Carter, along with the writer of the episode, Darin Morgan, and his brother and another longtime “X-Files” writer Glen Morgan, recalled his surprise about the way “Jose Chung’s” broadened the stylistic scope of the series. “You can never imagine where it’s going to go,” Carter said. “To do […]

Fans of the BBC sci-fi series “Doctor Who” know that this season’s biggest mystery isn’t about sinister aliens or otherworldly adventures, but rather about the origins of the latest in the Doctor’s long and lovely line of traveling companions. Played by Jenna-Louise Coleman, Clara Oswald has been dubbed “the impossible girl.” Before the Doctor (Matt Smith) recruited Clara, a London nanny, to join him on his jaunts through time and space, he had met her before — or at least he met two women who looked just like her. Both women died, and Clara’s existence baffles the Time Lord. Coleman’s Clara has big shoes to fill after the departure of  Amy Pond, played by Karen Gillan, a fan-favorite companion who shared the screen with Matt Smith’s Doctor for 2 1/2 seasons. Like Amy, Clara is adventurous and spirited and not afraid […]

Thomas Jane as Rick Grimes? It might have happened if “The Walking Dead” creator Frank Darabont had had his way. At a special Q&A following a Hero Complex Film Festival screening of “The Mist,” Darabont, addressing a question from an audience member, spoke briefly about the thematic similarities between two pairs of projects on his resume — the Stephen King adaptations “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile,” and his 2007 horror film, which follows a group of people trapped in a shopping market after a mist envelopes their town and charts their personal devolution as they face terrible, heartbreaking choices, and the hit AMC zombie series  he launched in 2010. He also pointed out that he initially had wanted the star of “The Mist,” actor Thomas Jane, to play lawman Rick Grimes, the part that eventually went to actor Andrew […]

Will a Wonder Woman TV series ever get off the ground? The CW isn’t giving up yet. The network had been developing a pilot called “Amazon” about teenaged Diana (think “Smallville’s” pre-Superman Clark Kent), but the series was passed over for the CW’s fall lineup. When asked Thursday if the warrior princess could still come to the CW, network President Mark Pedowitz said, “Oh God, yes! “It is being redeveloped,” he said. “We’re waiting for the script to come in. We have not seen it yet. We are preparing to pilot it off-cycle should the script be what we want it to be.” Pedowitz said that although “the basics” were all there, the execution was lacking. “We do not want to do something that doesn’t work for that particular character,” he said. “It’s the trickiest of all the DC characters […]

Coulson lives! After nearly a year of rumors and anticipation among Marvel fans, ABC officially ordered a first season of the new television series “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” last week, sending Marvel fans all aflutter. “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” is set in the same world as last summer’s blockbuster smash “The Avengers,” which united Marvel’s muscled superheroes Iron Man, Captain American, Thor, the Hulk and others, and featured the international law enforcement and espionage organization. Clark Gregg, who played S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Phil Coulson in “The Avengers” and previous Marvel films, is reprising the role for the TV series, donning his suit and sunglasses once more to lead a team of crime-fighting agents: Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), highly trained in combat and espionage; Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), expert pilot and martial artist; Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker), brilliant engineer; Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge), […]

It’s been 20 years since “The X-Files” opened to viewers’ wanting-to-believe eyes, and the hit paranormal investigation drama’s creator, Chris Carter, doesn’t quite know what to make of that phenomenon. “It’s surreal,” he told a sold-out crowd Sunday at the Hero Complex Film Festival shortly after entering to a standing ovation. “It’s like an X-File…. Twenty years’ missing time.” Asked what he might do differently if he made the show now, he said, “It was of its time…. You probably could make the show today, but, I don’t know why, it just feels like it was made exactly when it should have been made.” The festival’s closing night was devoted to the acclaimed Fox series, and included screenings of three fan-picked episodes – the pilot, which he wrote, “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” and “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose.” Carter said […]

PERSPECTIVE I came to “The X-Files,” which turns 20 this year, after its first season, and for a time I had no idea what was happening. This was a good way to watch a show whose greatest strength was its air of dreamlike mystery. Folded across the turn of the 21st-century, it was a millennial show for a millennial time, reflecting a popular preoccupation with apocalypse and messiahs, puzzling phenomena and unexplained mysteries, psychic surgeons and alien autopsies, random mutations and science gone too far. It was also, looking back on old episodes, a time of pay phones, answering machines, tape recorders, dot-matrix printouts, padded shoulders and big eyeglasses. The basics were fairly clear: Fox “Spooky” Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dr. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) were FBI agents whose particular job it was to handle cases outside the bounds of […]

“Doctor Who” star Jenna-Louise Coleman has been warned. She knows that two months from now, fans at Comic-Con International in San Diego will line up in the thousands, camping overnight outside the city’s convention center to secure seats for the annual panel devoted to the BBC TV sensation. Many will wield sonic screwdrivers or wear Dalek costumes, and more than a few will come dressed as Coleman’s character, Clara. But back in March, the hype hadn’t caught up with her. “Everyone wants to know, ‘Has your life changed since joining the show?’” Coleman said over a lunch of baby beets and tangerine at downtown Los Angeles’ Lazy Ox Canteen. “And I’m like, ‘No, not really.’ I just go to Cardiff, and I do mad things and experience mad stuff on set, and then I come back to my London life, […]