TV

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, […]

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau made an appearance over the weekend on “Saturday Night Live,” turning up at the end of a sketch that saw host Zach Galifianakis dressed in a dragon costume in a parody of the obsessive nature of the “Game of Thrones” fandom. In the skit, “The Hangover Part III” star played one of three fans competing on “Game of Game of Thrones,” a quiz show with categories devoted to such topics as the Lannisters, the Night’s Watch and, also, geography — correct answers earned 10 silver stags. Actual fans of the HBO series adapted from George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” saga most likely would have had no trouble answering such questions as “Who killed Qhorin Halfhand behind the Wall?” The faux contestants certainly had no trouble either. But when it came to real-world facts, like, say, […]

Iron Man is back in the multiplex in a big way this weekend with “Iron Man 3,” but the character also features prominently in “Marvel’s Avengers Assemble,” a new animated series set to premiere July 7 on the Marvel Universe block on Disney XD, with a special one-hour sneak preview on May 26. Hero Complex is bringing you a new look at the team. The heroic lineup, which also includes Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye and Black Widow, is the same as the Avengers who assembled for Joss Whedon’s 2012 blockbuster, with the notable inclusion of one of Captain America’s oldest friends and partners, the Falcon. A previous series, “The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” offered glimpses of numerous Marvel characters, but “Avengers Assemble” marks the first time this lineup has appeared on a television show. The series stars Adrian Pasdar […]

“Arrow” is rapidly moving toward the conclusion of its first season and fans can rest easy knowing that, no matter what happens, the show will return in the fall. The CW series has already been picked up for a second season. Though he’s still hard at work on the finale, which airs May 15, “Arrow” executive producer  and co-show runner Marc Guggenheim took a few minutes to talk about what’s still to come for Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) and Starling City. And for those wondering about what they can expect, check out the clip above from Wednesday night’s episode, titled “The Undertaking,” which flashes back to Oliver and his father before their ill-fated trip at sea. Beware, some spoilers lurk below for anyone not up to date with the season so far. HC: Were you able to accomplish everything you […]