Alien Western - James Marsters will hang 'em high!

I've always liked James Marsters as an actor. He was brilliant as Spike in Buffy. Now it looks as if he is trying to get over the Dragonball film and is starring in a Western with sci-fi trappings. Alien Western - That's a poor name to be honest but I do like the design of the alien and I'm a big fan of Westerns.

With this show and Cowboys & Aliens in development it looks as if the genre mash-up will be around for a while. Marsters stars as Sam Danville, a prisoner who's about to be executed, but his day of reckoning is interrupted by an alien attack.

James Marsters (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville, Torchwood) and Cindy Sampson (Supernatural) star in this action-packed World Premiere thriller from RHI Entertainment, a small town in the untamed West comes under attack by a full-scale alien invasion. No one invited them, but nothing can stop them!

Alien Western premieres on the Syfy Channel on June 1st and there are a few trailers and clips below.

Source: io9

Will you be watching this?

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Caprica - Some clips from the Battlestar Galactica prequel

Now that Battlestar Galactica is over the attention is now on the prequel series Caprica. Below is the series synopsis from the Sci-Fi Channel or Syfy, along with some clips from the show.

An astonishing breakthrough is taking shape on the planet Caprica. The rapidly evolving spheres of human and mechanical engineering have collided, along with the fates of two families. Joined by tragedy in an explosive instant of terror, two rival clans led by powerful patriarchs, Joseph Adama (Esai Morales) and Daniel Greystone (Eric Stoltz) duel in an era of questionable ethics, corporate machinations and unbridled personal ambition as the final war for humanity looms. The latest phenomenon from the executive producers of Battlestar Galactica (Ronald D. Moore and David Eick), set in a time over 50 years earlier, Caprica is entirely its own world - provocative, thrilling and startling relevant to our own.

Having watched the clips do you feel this will be a worthy replacement for Battlestar Galactica?

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Holy Billy Zane - The Phantom may become a TV series.

A while back I mentioned that the old comic book character, The Phantom was going to have another chance at the big screen thanks to an Australian film company, producer Bruce Sherlock, and writer Tim Boyle. It is doubtful that Billy Zane would get a chance to Slam Evil again (what a dreadful tagline that was). However, now it looks like he’ll be getting the small-screen treatment too, thanks to the Sci-Fi (soon to be renamed SyFy - what a dreadful rebrand that is) channel.

According to The Hollywood Reporter (via MTV), “The Phantom” is getting a fresh take in a Sci-Fi miniseries. Rather than be daunted by the character’s past cinematic failures, producer Robert Halmi Jr. sees it as a chance to redefine the character.

“That there hasn’t been a successful ‘Phantom’ leaves the door wide open for us,” said Halmi, “since nobody has made it their own yet.”

Sci-Fi was drawn to the masked man because of his realistic setting, and lack of superpowers. “It’s not a guy in purple tights,” notes Mark Strong, Sci Fi channel executive. If the miniseries does well, Sci-Fi may turn it into an ongoing series in the hopes that they can fill the void left by “Battlestar Galactica.”

A film and a TV series. Both mean the Ghost who walks will be back in the public eye, but which one would you want to see the most? Who should be the Phantom?

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Sci-Fi to become SyFy?!? Of all the dumb ideas!

FOR years, television viewers, journalists who write about TV and services that compile listings have wondered how to refer to a certain cable network: Sci Fi Channel? Sci-Fi Channel? SciFi Channel? SCI FI Channel?

Soon, to paraphrase Rod Serling — whose vintage series, “The Twilight Zone,” is a mainstay of the Sci Fi Channel — executives will submit for public approval another name, not only of sight and sound but of mind, meant to signal a channel whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead — your next stop, Syfy.

Plans call for Sci Fi and its companion Web site (scifi.com) to morph into the oddly spelled Syfy — pronounced the same as “Sci Fi” — on July 7. The new name will be accompanied by the slogan “Imagine Greater,” which replaces a logo featuring a stylized version of Saturn.

A channel called Syfy will, presumably, not be confused with SyFi Global, an information technology company; S.Y.F.I., the Summer Youth Forestry Institute; or Syfo seltzer, sold by Universal Beverages.

The tweaking of the Sci Fi name, introduced in 1992, is part of a rebranding campaign that seeks to distinguish the channel and its programming from cable competitors — 75 of which are also measured by the Nielsen ratings service.

The Syfy name is to be introduced on Monday to advertisers and agencies by executives of Sci Fi, part of the NBC Universal Cable Entertainment division of NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric.

The name will be revealed at an upfront presentation, when networks try to win commitments by advertisers to blocks of commercial time before the start of the next TV season. Cable channels will spend this month and next making upfront presentations; the broadcast networks will follow in April and May.

One big advantage of the name change, the executives say, is that Sci Fi is vague — so generic, in fact, that it could not be trademarked. Syfy, with its unusual spelling, can be, which is also why diapers are called Luvs, an online video Web site is called Joost and a toothpaste is called Gleem.

“We couldn’t own Sci Fi; it’s a genre,” said Bonnie Hammer, the former president of Sci Fi who became the president of NBC Universal Cable Entertainment and Universal Cable Productions. “But we can own Syfy.”

Another benefit of the new name is that it is not “throwing the baby away with the bath water,” she added, because it is similar enough to the Sci Fi brand to convey continuity to “the fan-boys and -girls who love the genre.”

Ms. Hammer and her successor as Sci Fi president, Dave Howe, said they had sat through many meetings over the years at which a name change was debated.

The principal reason the idea kept coming up, Mr. Howe said, was a belief “the Sci Fi name is limiting.”

“If you ask people their default perceptions of Sci Fi, they list space, aliens and the future,” he added. “That didn’t capture the full landscape of fantasy entertainment: the paranormal, the supernatural, action and adventure, superheroes.”

That became more important as Sci Fi expanded its program offerings into those realms, Mr. Howe said, with series like “Destination Truth” and “Ghost Hunters.”

And a shorter, more memorable name is more readily “attached to new businesses,” he added, like movies, video games, mobile content and additional channels overseas.

Source: NY Times

Of all the closed minded, stupid, idiotic and pathetic ideas I've heard, this one is a doozy. SyFy...of all the names they could have picked they choose that one. Obviously someone with no understanding of science-fiction has come up with that idea. Plus why rebrand something anyway. If they can't tradmark Sci-Fi then why not trademark Sci-Fi Channel? There problem solved.

How can they say the Sci-Fi Channel needs to be changed to distinguish it from other channels? What other channels are there that you confuse with the Sci-Fi Channel? I'm drawing a blank, yet the NY Times article points out a few things that could be confused with the new SyFy name.

If they say that Sci-Fi has limited preconceptions then my preconception of SyFy is of a 2 year old trying to spell sci-fi or television executives who wouldn't understand science or fiction trying to be cool in front of their boss. They should all be shot with some kind of Syience Fyction death ray. Idiots!

What do you think of the name change?

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