Writer Josh Friedman (The War of the Worlds, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) is adapting the work for television.

Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Transformers, Fringe) are producing. Steven Spielberg was previously listed as an executive producer on the project, but is no longer involved.

No word on a possible air date.

• One of the last times we saw Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 6 villain Warren Mears, he had been flayed alive by Evil Witch Willow and left hanging without his skin. So how’s he doing now? “Oh, I’m holding it together,” he tells the Poison Pen — specifically, by using saran wrap to keep his insides from falling out. The good news is he’s working on a memoir where he promises to “really spill my guts.”

• “Q,” the omnipotent being from Star Trek’s Q Continuum, has put Humanity on trial once again, but unlike Humanity’s previous encounter with Q at Farpoint, the verdict was thumbs down. “Two words: Sarah Palin,” Q tells the Poison Pen. When reached for a comment, even Captain Jean-Luc Picard emphatically agreed with Q’s latest verdict. “She’s just a horrible human being,” Picard said. “The fact that anyone, much less half the American public, takes such an ignorant, irresponsible person seriously pretty much condemns our entire species.” Q’s total annihilation of humanity is said to be imminent.

• The Magic Mirror has released its annual list of the world’s fairest people, and once again, The Evil Queen is atop the list, overcoming those recent rumors that the reason she always wears her trademark black cowl is because she’s bald. The Queen was graceful in accepting the title once again, magnanimously sending runner-up Megan Fox a fruit basket of shiny red apples. Still, the decision has led some to say the mirror, who has named the queen “Fairest” for 73 years running, is biased. “Look, the Evil Queen looks great, especially for being 256 years old,” says one industry stylist. “But there is still no evidence that she’s ever actually smiled.” Alas, the same thing can also be said of Angelina Jolie.

• Dr. Zaius, the Planet of the Apes’ Minister of Science and Chief Defender of the Faith, has come out as a chimpanzee instead of an orangutan, despite the fact that, for decades, he officially sanctioned discrimination against other chimpanzees. “I am a menace, a walking pestilence,” says Dr. Zaius, who reportedly dyed his fur orange in order to appear more orangutanian. “But at least I’m not as bad as that gay guy who led George W. Bush’s re-election campaign!”

• Finally, I’ll leave you with this blind item about a certain sidekick of a famous do-gooder who feels that the do-gooder in question treats them like a child and yearns to be given more responsibility. Wait, that pretty much describes them all, doesn’t it?

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The two of us share a home

I write the poems, he works the loam

He is free to move about

But I’m locked inside, I can’t get out

Though we are one in many ways

I pay the price when my brother strays

He loses love, I feel the pain

He makes a kill, I bear the stain

But I’ll have revenge when death taps the door

For I know a secret passage to something more

And while he must face the dirge and stay

I’ll be free to slip away

Scroll down for the answer!

































The Answer is: The Human Soul

Ron Moore

According to Deadline Hollywood, Ron Moore, the man responsible for the “reimagining” of Battlestar Galatica, has gotten the greenlight from NBC to do a pilot for a series that is described as “an adult Harry Potter,” set in a world ruled by magic, not science.

Moore’s work on Galatica, initially a four-hour miniseries turned into a full series on the SyFy Channel, was widely hailed as some of the most sophisticated sci-fi of all time and helped revitalize the genre on TV.

Moore has a long history of working in genre TV. Prior to his work on Galactica, he worked on various incarnations of Star Trek, as well as The WB’s Roswell and SyFy’s Good vs. Evil.

Around 2002, he worked on a TV adaptation of Anne McCaffrey’s The Dragonriders of Pern for The WB, but he halted the production when the network reportedly insisted on changes that took the project too far from McCaffrey’s original vision.

The two-hour pilot for one recent Moore sci-fi project, Virtuality, ran on Fox last summer, to disappointing ratings and reviews.

No word on a title for the new Moore series, or the earliest that the show could run, should the pilot get picked up.

• I was one of the movie-goers appalled at the “remake” (he says snidely) of Clash of the Titans. It was a hot mess that suffered horribly in the reviews. So of course the sequel is full speed ahead!

• Now that my daily dose of vitriol is out of the way, we can move on. By now we all know that wizard Radagast the Brown will be featured in The Hobbit. And now, thanks to The One Ring, we may know who’s playing him!

• Four new actors have signed on to meet their tragic and gruesome ends in the fifth Final Destination flick, to be called 5nal Destination. Heat Vision tells us David Koechner, Nicholas D’Agosto, P.J. Byrne and Ellen Wroe make up the latest batch of victims.

• Well, here’s something that never occurred to me. Does Christopher Nolan have a woman problem?

• Wanna see something really bizarre and have almost an hour to kill? Behold: Star Wars meets Indiana Jones: The Stunt Show.

• The always dependable Cracked gives us 7 Iconic Characters They Saved From the Cutting Room Floor.

• Finally, in the category of “Things Almost Too Awesome to Exist,” I present to you … the Yoda Cake!

That’s a cake!!!

Q: Oh Oracle! [genuflects]. Many posts here at TheTorchOnline.com have reflected on what constitutes “fantasy.” And you have, thankfully, taken the broadest view. I like that you’ve challenged us to consider, for example, that Star Wars is actually fantasy in disguise as sci-fi (and I agree).  But I wonder if the reverse can be true, and some other stories are only disguised as fantasy, but actually are not. Case in point:  A Game of Thrones, the first of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series, which has been getting a lot of press lately because of the series in production. But the few fantasy elements in this book are so embryonic and unexplored in comparison to the rest of the tale, that they seemed to play no real role. I ended up hypothesizing that Martin had used the fantasy elements to entice an audience he might not otherwise get to read what is actually a work of medieval fiction: actually not fantasy at all. The book was mostly about kings, lords, courts, alliances, betrayals, city-states, battles, and so on. I have not yet read book 2, A Clash of Kings, but I gather it’s more of the same: just a few incidental turns of fantasy amidst great and lengthy medieval machinations. Does the series ever step into the fantasy realm whole-heartedly? Do you think individual books or the series as a whole really qualify as fantasy? – Bob, Durham, NC

The Oracle Speaks:

It’s a fair question.

First, yes, all the books (so far) are like that: mostly medieval character studies and political maneuverings, with the occasional reference to magic and legendary creatures.

That said, there are dragons, kracken, manticores, zombie-like wights, ape-like giants, mammoths, and dire wolves.

And there’s plenty of magic too: in the Guild of Faceless Men (who can change their appearances), the witch Melisandre, and The Others north of The Wall, who clearly command much power.

I’d say this is all more than enough to classify the books as “fantasy.”

Here’s what I think is confusing you (and, it should be noted, many other readers who make the same complaint): it’s not the books’ lack of fantasy elements that make them different from most other works of fantasy — it’s their shocking realism.

Unlike most fantasy, these stories of “yore” are not romanticizing the past in any way — they’re stories told as if magic and monsters, not to mention all the shocking brutality of medieval kingdoms, are absolutely real.

(Indeed, mammoths and dire wolves really did exist on Earth and are, of course, extinct now.)

And what if magic was real? It would surely inspire enormous panic and superstition (as in the books). But at the same, it might require great effort, and would be used only sparingly.

It would basically be very, very mysterious.

The threat of monsters, meanwhile, would be omnipresent and overwhelming. But at the same time, for humans to exist, those monsters would have to have been dealt with in some respect, shunted off to one side, at least in most parts of the world.

That’s the whole point of The Wall, I think: “We gotta block that magic and those monsters out completely!”

This all strikes me as perfectly plausible, given Martin’s realistic take on things.

Martin is also practicing subtly, understanding that sometimes “less is more.” When used sparingly, these fantastical elements have more of an impact when they do appear.

The one very compelling argument in your favor that these are not true works of fantasy is that, in addition to being so realistic, Martin chooses not to have any of his main or POV characters be magic-users (which is another bold break from fantasy convention). This makes magic seem even less “significant” in this world than it already is.

I can’t speak for Martin, but I suspect he’s doing two thing here: (1) deliberately breaking from fantasy conventions (which, let’s face it, need breaking!), and (2) subtly trying to create that “realistic” sense of magic and monsters that his characters feel, by deliberately using these elements sparingly and keeping them at arm’s length.

Q: How is Andy Whitfield doing anyway? — Megan, San Diego, CA

The Oracle Speaks:

In March, Spartacus star Andy Whitfield was, of course, diagnosed with with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which can rapidly become fatal if untreated.

But Whitfield was treated, and reportedly responded well and has been
given “a clean bill of health.”

“Andy looks better than I have ever seen in my entire life,” says Spartacus executive producer Steven DeKnight. ” He looks fantastic. He’s in great spirits. He’s recovered, he’s training. He’s actually talking about bulking up bigger this year. So yeah, he’s doing great.”

Q:With all the attention being paid to the new Comedy Central show MAD, I can’t help but wonder why anyone cares about MAD Magazine. Does anyone even read it anymore? — Ed, Trenton, NJ

The Oracle Speaks:

You didn’t give your age, but I’m assuming you’re under the age of, say, 35.

For better or for worse, I believe the major influences on comedy over the last thirty years were (1) Saturday Night Live, (2) David Letterman, (3) Jerry Seinfeld, (4) The Simpsons, and (5) Judd Apatow. They’ve shaped the crude but ironic and cynical modern comedy sensibility we now all recognize.

But preceding (and influencing) all of the above was MAD Magazine, founded in 1952 and directly influencing most of today’s top humorists, especially at the peak of their influence in the early 70s, when circulation topped 2 million. Basically, they were ironic, openly cynical, seemingly dumb, but often deceptively smart back in the days of Sid Ceasar and Carol Burnett (who were funny, but irony-free).

Their sensibility became modern humor.

Of course, the magazine and its influence has long since been eclipsed by the work of all the writers and comedians who were inspired by it, which makes the new Comedy Central TV show an homage, at best.

And why is this a fantasy-themed question? Eh, it’s not, except that plenty of fantasy geeks were also devoted readers of MAD and saw both as major antidote to simple-minded provincialism. Me, for example.

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Please send an email to thetorchonlineoracle@gmail.com and be sure and include your city and state and/or country.

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The interview is now available on YouTube.com (in two parts), and it’s fascinating, especially given the time the interviews took place: post-Twilight Zone and in something of a career lull, before Serling’s true legacy was known.

The questions are somewhat boilerplate, but Serling himself proves that his reputation as a visionary is not misguided: he is articulate and insightful not just about his own work, but also about the genre of sci-fi/fantasy in general.

In talking about sci-fi on TV, for example, he says:

I think the networks have almost ritualistically shortchanged the science fiction audience, both qualitatively and quantitatively. … I think science fiction is a high level literary form. And I think it’s much more than a small coterie of loyal viewers who have read Amazing Stories and want to go on. I think it’s a sizable group, particularly among the young, because we live in a society that’s so technologically improved and so scientifically oriented. Indeed, this is simply a reflection of what’s going on.

Interestingly, he’s not a huge fan of the original Star Trek.

Watch the whole interview:

h/t SFSignal

For these “goth” recaps, we will bring the darkness of True Blood directly into your very soul, and if there’s any light in you, we’ll suck it out. We’re just that goth.

A word of warning for those who wish to remain unspoiled, on this page we indulge in the bloody despair and evil, evil plot points. Ye have been warned …

Last week, Eric, in all his infinite gothness, decided to use Sookie as bait in order to make a deal with the insane vampire king, Russell Edgington, who was none too pleased with Eric after he murdered Russell’s husband, Talbot. So, naturally, he chained her up in the basement. So goth.

After he takes off, Bill runs in, sensing Sookie’s in trouble. Usually Mr. Compton knows how to bring the goth, but this dashing hero routine is just so tired. Fortunately, the sexy and eternally goth Pam is there to spray a little silver into his face. Yes, Bill. Feast on your delicious agony.

Wait, what happened? First Bill has rejected his innate gothness, then Sookie picks up the slack by silver-choking Pam? Wow, who knew?

Meanwhile, Tara is sizing up her life of the past few months: she finally met someone she loved, only to have him shot, and then was tortured by an insane vampire. So she surrenders to despair and weeps in a graveyard at night. And really, haven’t we all been there?

Following a V-induced trip, Lafayette and Jesus are sitting in the living room when Lafayette hallucinates that Jesus has turned into … whatever that thing is. Imagining your lover as a hideous demon? I think Lafayette may just be pulling his goth weight this week. Well, it’s about time.

So first Sookie goes goth, then Lafayette goes gother, and now it looks like Arlene, who employed her witch friend to magically murder her unborn baby, may take the goth gold ring. Arlene! What’s in the water in Bon Temps tonight?

Sookie and Bill are driving across town, imagining their lives as a perfect, happy rural couple. Disgusting. Fortunately, Russell and Eric arrive to put a stop to it. Tres goth, gentlemen. Good show. It turns out Eric wants to encourage Russell to drink Sookie’s fairy blood so he can walk in the sunlight. (I know what you’re thinking. Why would anyone ever want to walk in the sunlight?)

Well, never fear. This desire for sunlight isn’t some de-gothing on Eric’s part. It turns out it was an elaborate ruse to trap Russell under the sun and kill him. Of course, it will kill Eric as well.

But that’s how a truly goth man rolls.

Till next time, my little demons … goth out.

The relief I then see is priceless.

But should I be so quick to distance myself from the whips-and-leather crowd? While fantasy does have a kid-friendly, wizards-and-adventure side, I think it would be naive to suggest that there aren’t some people who utilize the trappings of the genre to explore their sexual kinks. All one has to do is run a Google Image search of “fantasy art,” and you’ll very quickly wind up with images like this:

What one finds in much fantasy art is a remarkably common theme of sexuality, which often has a heavy BDSM element. (To the uniformed, that stands for Bondage, Discipline, and Sadomasochism.)

Sometimes, the bondage theme is explicit and openly embraced, such as in the Kushiel novels of Jacqueline Carey, whose main character is a bisexual masochist who finds sexual pleasure in being tortured. (You can read TheTorchOnline.com’s interview with Carey here.)

But sometimes the S&M factor is played more coyly, giving us bondage-themed imagery without ever truly owning it. In the ’50s and ’60s, there were a plethora of beefcake movies, such as the Hercules films starring Steve Reeves, featuring oiled-up hunks and sexy babes alike constantly bound in chains and other restraints.

Most of these movies were terrible by the standards of anyone who wants their films to have a plot. Mostly they played out like fodder for one scene after another of sexy skin pressed against chains.

The very concept of a damsel in distress has a flavoring of S&M, as a helpless maiden is often tied up and must be rescued. Return of the Jedi even showcased series heroine Leia in what has become the iconic, quintessential S&M-tinted damsel outfit — the infamous gold bikini — before employing a post-feminist twist and having her kill her captor herself. But nonetheless, the image of Leia bound and chained like a slave girl has inspired many a young libido to get started.

The trend followed through into the ’90s, where it began to take a more subtle approach. The character of Xena, perhaps the most enduring high fantasy creation of the last 20 years, certainly bore a striking resemblance to a dominatrix, with her leather outfit and arsenal of weapons, a whip very prominently among them.

And how many times throughout the course of the series did we see Xena chained and beaten? She even sometimes seemed to enjoy fighting an opponent who could get his or her licks in, absorbing the blows with a satisfied smile.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer certainly went there, most notably in the sixth season when Buffy began her mutually-abusive relationship with bad boy vamp Spike. Their first session together was so violent it destroyed the entire house they were in.

But as time marches on, the BDSM themes became more overt. Even the family-friendly series Legend of the Seeker features the Mord’Sith, an army of women dressed entirely in leather who specialize in torturing their victims. In one memorable episode, noble hero Richard is stripped and given the royal treatment by “Mistress Denna,” a dominatrix name if ever I heard one.

The vampire soap True Blood raised the bar, as virtually every sexual relationship on the show contains some form of sado-masochistic violence at its core. The show even boasts a brand-new fetish called fangbanging — that is, living humans who prefer to have sex exclusively with vampires. The moments on the show relevant to this article are far too many to mention, from Jason’s romance with a watiress who likes to be strangled in the firs season to Lorena’s twisted, torturous rendezvous with Bill a few episodes ago.

But the Golden Handcuff Award has to go to new kid on the block Spartacus: Blood and Sand. The entire first season’s plot plays out like an elaborate bondage fantasy, with a houseful of sexy slaves to be commanded and used at the pleasure of the masters, oversexed couple Batiatus and Lucretia.

No doubt, there are many fantasy fans who don’t respond to these particular themes. But it would be naive to suggest there isn’t a connection, at least for some, between the fantasy genre and very specific sexual leanings.

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• Actor Stephen Lang confirms that there is a supernatural element, as well as fakirs and wizards, in the upcoming Conan the Barbarian starring Jason Mamoa. So it’s not just a bunch of muscled guys whacking each other. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

• Earlier this month, we missed some concept art from the Conan film that’s actually pretty cool. I know this guy scares the devil out of me.

• The BBC has formally announced that the television adaptation of Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is a go for the fall/winter schedule on BBC 4. It sounds as if it’s the first book in the series. While this is believed to be a one-off, if it goes well it could become a series. No word from BBC America on airing it.

• The first review I’ve seen for Centurion is out, and it’s positive. “An ambitious and epic film that mixes elements of “The Lord Of The Rings” with “300″ and “Gladiator.” Director Neil Marshall’s visionary eye perfectly sets the tone for this blood and guts fest that features a powerhouse performance by Michael Fassbender.”

• This new trailer for Dragon Age 2 contains about 40 seconds of additional video over the first trailer. It’s all fight footage of Hawke kicking butt, plus a touch more dragon.

• Singer Lily Allen’s brother Alfie is set for a role on HBO’s A Game of Thrones. There’s an autoplay video at the link with him saying he’s excited to do an accent, and frankly, it scares me. Can he act?

• ABC’s superhero show No Ordinary Family has signed up Twilight’s Jackson Rathbone for a role as the telepathic teenage daughter’s classmate. No doubt this will inflate the ratings for any episode he’s in, with the rabid Twilight fans tuning in. With tactics like this, maybe the series will make it after all.

• The new director for Being Human series 3, block two, seems to really get what makes the show about a domestic werewolf, vampire and ghost work. It’s effects, it’s savagery, and it’s humor, and he’s aware of that, which is half the battle.

• Sylvester McCoy has confirmed he’s in negotiations for a role in The Hobbit (assuming they make the film in my lifetime). He’s not saying which role, but word on the street is that it’s Radagast the Brown, which is interesting, since Radagast doesn’t appear in The Hobbit. But when he teamed up offstage with Gandalf and the other wizards against Sauron, it was epic – at least as told in The Silmarillion.

• Steven Moffat says that he’s going to shake up the traditional Doctor Who season, running a Christmas special, a spring season with a finale on Easter, then back with seven episodes for autumn. But he’s fairly clear that this isn’t a SyFy split season – it’s more like two separate seasons. I smell a Children of Earth stunt.

• Allison Miller has joined Stephen Spielberg’s Terra Nova opposite Jason O’Mara. If they’re in charge of saving the human race and populating the earth, at least we know their descendants will be good looking.

According to Blaster.com, when a reporter mentioned that Weaver’s character, Grace Augustine, had died in the original, Weaver said:

Darling, that’s not true. She didn’t maybe die. Maybe she’s just in the tree. … I’m not allowed to say anything, but [Cameron] certainly made a lot of notes over the last year of where to move on. I think he really wants to keep the team together as much as he can.

When a reporter suggested that the planet of Pandora could somehow resuscitate her, Weaver added:

You stop there. I’m not allowed to say anything.

• Some new behind-the-scenes photographs have shown up from Supernatural’s new season. It looks like Sam, Dean, and the car are stuck in a small town. Which is exactly what 98% of the show looks like if you watch it on mute.

• Narnia.com is sporting some new sound effects, a new Lucy picture, and there’s a schedule for the other online “islands” to open. Narrowhaven is September, Goldwater is October, with the rest opening in November.

• Meanwhile, the Dawn Treader itself (if you’re picky, the “Matthew” in drag) is trapped in tiny fishing village in England to ride out some weather, but it let the BBC get some great footage of the ship, which is mostly CGI in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

• IDW is going to give Angel to Dark Horse comics, and the Buffyverses can finally be synchronized. Fans of both Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics had been dealing with goodie-goodie Angel in his own title, and a decidedly less friendly version in Buffy.

• Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz is going to make a supernatural WWII tank movie called Panzer 88. They say it’s going to be based on real troop movements in 1944 on the Russian front, but will add an occult element that’s not really specified. It’s only got a $20 million budget, but it has WETA behind the effects.

• Rupert Grint says that the old Harry Potter sets in Leavesden are being turned into a theme park, but I don’t think he’s defining “theme park” the same way Disney or Universal Studios does.

• Meanwhile a few more photos from Deathly Hallows have leaked out, but they don’t seem to tell you much about the story, except that England hasn’t invented waterproof Nylon tents yet.

• Wired talked to David J. Peterson who is creating the new language for the nomadic Dothraki horse tribes in A Game of Thrones. He’s create a dozen languages prior to tackling Dothraki, and considers language creation to be an art form. He even found typos in what little of the language George R.R. Martin created in the books. The language currently contains 2,356 words.

• The ballots for the World Fantasy Awards have been announced, and I’m ashamed to admit that in the novel category, not on have I only have I read none of the books, I only know one of the authors.

· Blood of Ambrose, James Enge (Pyr)

· The Red Tree, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)

· The City & The City, China Miéville (Macmillan UK/ Del Rey)

· Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (Underland)

· In Great Waters, Kit Whitfield (Jonathan Cape UK/Del Rey)

• Finally, what would it look like if M. Night Shyamalan spoofed his own upcoming elevator movie with MTV’s Josh Horowitz? You’d have Escalation.