In person, Mark Pellegrino has both devils’ horns and vampire fangs.

Okay, not really. But you’ll forgive me for expecting them, given how incredibly effective he’s been in his roles as Lucifer’s vessel on Supernatural and Bishop, the leader of the vampires on Syfy’s Being Human — and also the mysterious Jacob on Lost.

(As much as I loved him in Supernatural, I didn’t think the producers gave the character of Lucifer nearly enough to do last year!)

The 45-year-old actor has been finding steady TV and film work for years, often as thugs and other meanies (in the cult film The Big Lebowski, he was the guy who stuffs Jeff Bridge’s head down the toilet).

But with break-out appearances on high-profile shows like Supernatural and Lost, and his bigger role on Being Human, Pellegrino’s career is currently hotter than ever.

Recently, I had a chance to sit down with him and chat about how he got so very good at playing bad:

TheTorchOnline: You’re so good at playing evil. Do you worry about being typecast?

Mark Pellegrino: I don’t because I feel like I let the audience judge who’s evil, and I try to play everybody, at least so far, as good. To me, Lucifer was somebody who had a real beef. He’d been betrayed by his father and his brother for lesser beings, and was angry about it and wanted to get revenge. I think anybody could to relate to that. So to me, that’s not necessarily a bad guy. That’s a good guy who’s been betrayed, who has a sense of justice, who’s been bamboozled.

TTO: What I absolutely loved about that Satan is that he was the one character who always told the truth. The Prince of Lies never lied!

MP: Regardless of how one religious one is, I think an amazingly coherent case can be made against God, so one needs to just tell the truth. And that’s what Lucifer did, to his credit. He was an angel of light before to the fall.

TTO: Was this a pre-existing belief you had or did you find it for the character?

MP: I was lucky in the sense that I’ve experimented was various beliefs all my life, so when I did that show, I had already probably read The Bible four times, studied it from a philosophical perspective. So I think my sensibility was already there. They did give me a book called The Book of Enoch [an ancient Jewish document] and I read that,but it didn’t inform me.

"Being Human"'s Sam Witwer (left) and Pellegrino

TTO: Any chance we’ll see Lucifer again?

MP: Not that I know of. I think Lucifer used up that vessel. But it is the supernatural, so anything is possible.

TTO: So how is being the leader of the vampires in Being Human the same as playing Lucifer, and how is it different?

MP: Well, it’s the same in the sense that I have a cause. It’s a same in the sense that I’m dealing with issues of deep betrayal and a family split.

But rather than trying to destroy and annihilate like Lucifer did, Bishop is trying to bring the elements back together again. He’s trying to be a uniting force. So he sees a little bit further than his desire for revenge. And I think that’s motivated by a real love and connection with Aiden, the main character, that I don’t think Lucifer would’ve allowed himself.

TTO: When you play these roles, do you find that the darkness stays with you? Is it ever difficult to shake off?

MP: I think things like that can [stay with you]. I think that’s more an issue with younger actors. It was definitely an issue with me for a few years. But after a while, you begin to understand the difference between what you’re doing on the set and life.

It can infect you a little bit if the emotions that you’re feeling are negative enough. But you can tend to shake it off. You learn how to supplement yourself with other stuff.

TTO: In your personal life, do you find that you’re drawn to these sci-fi/fantasy/horror roles?

MP: I’ve always been a big fan of science fiction and horror. It’s been sort of an accident that I’ve stumbled into my favorite genre. I’m glad about it. I think science fiction has been a place for people to explore taboo subjects in a safe atmosphere, because it’s fantasy. So they can really push the envelope in a lot of ways.

And horror is just great, because really well-done horror is really the realm of the heroic. The stories are deep. I’m not a big fan of the slasher flick. I like the “story” horror — The Exorcist, the story of a man losing his faith and regaining it. And Rosemary’s Baby, things like that.

And I think we touch that [in Being Human], in that way of telling a real story about souls.

TTO: When you were a kid and playing with your friends, did you play the bad guy then?

MP: I think we all kind of switched up! We did the natural acting thing. I spent a lot of years in acting class trying to regain the things we did when we were five.

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Four and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

I realize I might take some heat for this, but … I’m thinking that Syfy’s new remake of the UK show Being Human is better than the original.

I know, I know: anyone who reads this site regularly knows how down I am on the fact that so much coming out of Hollywood these days is either a remake,  a sequel, or a “reimagining.” Let’s have some original thinking, please!

But maybe the reason I think a US remake of Being Human isn’t such a terrible idea is that I also think the original wasn’t wholly successful to begin with.

Yes, I appreciated that they were willing to go “dark” (and blend “dark” and “funny” in interesting ways), and the cast was certainly appealing.

But the pacing was sometimes off in the original (a lot); I thought Annie was a crazy-sexist stereotype (at least at first); and I am so beyond-tired of “good” vampires struggling against their natures — not to mention wars between vampires, or between vampires and werewolves.

Syfy’s Being Human keeps the tired vampire elements, but the storytelling is simply stronger and more consistent here. And the character of Annie doesn’t take a whole season to stop being a whiny, passive stereotype — she’s confident and active right from the start (despite being a ghost with agoraphobia issues).

Weirdly, this actually turns out to be the perfect show for Syfy. It’s got that great “high-concept” premise to attract attention (a ghost, a vampire, and a werewolf get an apartment together…). It’s also basically a one-location (the apartment), one-town, small-cast show — and it’s special effects-light — all of which means it can be produced at least semi-cheaply, but it doesn’t have to look cheap (like, um, the more “epic” Warehouse 13, with its incredibly cheesy “warehouse” effects and ridiculous “foreign” locations).

Syfy made the first three episodes of this new show available for preview by critics, and I was surprised how different it was from the original. I found it interesting that they took plot-elements that they thought worked (the mystery involving Annie’s death, the big brother-little brother rapport between the werewolf — “Josh” here — and the vampire Aiden), and they completely jettisoned the stuff that doesn’t work (like Annie’s passiveness). In addition, Josh’s backstory seems stronger and more fleshed out, and the mechanics of the Annie’s afterlife are spelled out and grounded more quickly too.

It’s also worth noting that can’t do much better than Mark Pellegrino (”Lucifer” on Supernatural) as the Vampire Ringleader.

Will Syfy’s Being Human be as “dark” as the UK version? At a panel last week at the Television Critics Association, the producers went to great lengths to emphasize that it will.

I’m not so sure (but I’m also not so sure it matters). Sure, they may include some of the UK version’s particularly provocative plot-elements. But this is simply a different show — no less smart, but broader, more “mainstream,” and also more accessible. It’s a “reimagining” in a very real way — but in the good sense of the word.

I’m not trying to start an argument with any fans of Syfy’s current and past programming. But with the notable exception of Battlestar Galactica, I think the channel’s programming so far has been mostly sub-par (I’m still holding a major grudge for the apparently script-free Haven!).

Being Human is something different. This time, no allowances are necessary to see fantasy programming on television — this one plays in the big leagues.

Being Human premieres Monday, January, 17th at 9 PM.

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At a presentation at the Television Critics Association conference in Pasadena today, the cast and producers of Syfy’s new show Being Human, about a vampire, a ghost, and a werewolf living together, praised the original UK version, but then argued that their remake is both different and worthwhile.

“It was about embracing what the original had, which we loved,” said Mark Stern, the President of Original Programming at Syfy. “But I think there’s a great opportunity to explore more of that world, which we’ve done. We had thirteen episodes [in our first season], they had six.”

Sam Huntington, Meaghan Rath, Sam Witwer

Both shows deserve to exist, Stern said. “There is a certain amount of [similar] ground that needs to be covered in the beginning. But the deeper into the series, the more they diverge. Watching the British series won’t spoil this series. They really do complement each other.”

“It’s a great premise,” said executive producer Jeremy Carver. “We [do] follow a similar trajectory at first. As a fan of the BBC version, we took great delight that we could confront some of these same moments, but then said to ourselves, ‘What if we did this differently?’ You’ll see moments that you think you recognize, but we take it in a different direction.”

“There are cultural differences,” added Sam Witwer, who plays the vampire. “Culturally, this is a North American version that deserves to be told.”

Seeing the actors was disconcerting, because they all look and sound more than a little like their UK counterparts.

Even so, the cast and producers all claim not to have watched much of the BBC version.

“We haven’t really seen it,” said Witwer. “I saw the first episode.”

“I’ve seen a couple of episodes,” said Sam Huntington, who plays the werewolf. “I was unaware of the BBC series until I was up for the job. Then I read the first two episodes [of our version], and they were beautiful.”

“We actually made a point of not watching the second season,” said executive producer Anna Fricke. “Because were mapping out our season and didn’t want to be influenced.”

“We didn’t want to just mimic them,” said Witwer. “Hopefully, if we’re successful, we’ll bring to them a bigger audience than they have now. They deserve that.”

The show is much more than its fantasy elements, the producers said.

“It has those supernatural elements, but if you took that all that away, it would still work, because it has these [great] characters,” Fricke said.

“At the core of every story, what all these charaacters struggle with, is what all of us take for granted,” said Carver.

The producers also promised that the US version would be as dark and provocative as the UK version has been.

“What we loved about the original series is that is it dark, it does push the envelope, and we want to do the same thing,” Fricke said.

Being Human premieres January 17th on Syfy.

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• The Television Critics Association meetings are in Los Angeles this week, with all the networks showing off their shiny new shows to critics. In the genre field, the news has been a bit dismal to this point, but The CW today held a Supernatural panel. It’s a lot of monsters this year, and the connections of monsters to Heaven, which they swear will make sense. I’m really interested in what they were saying about the faerie episode, because I’m unclear on how they could be worried about offending little people, unless we define “faerie” very differently.

• Things I was unaware of until recently: 1)My checking account balance; 2) Jones Pure Cane Soda Berry Lemonade; 3) and Sinbad the Fifth Voyage. I’m not sure I saw voyages 1-4, but I’ve been busy. The effects in this teaser look really cheesy, but it has Sir Patrick Stewart, so how bad could it be?

• Here’s the deal on Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch – I don’t understand the deal on Sucker Punch. Are they insane, is this VR, is it fantasy (I saw a dragon), what’s going on? Or is it just an excuse to get hot young girls in their underwear for fancy fight sequences?

• British character actor Charles Dance has been cast a the powerful Tywinn Lannister in HBO’s Game of Thrones series. I’m trying to place him in my distant memory of the books, but as I recall, he’s not a nice person.

• The SyFy remake of Being Human, about a vampire, a ghost and a werewolf trying to live a normal life, has begun filming in Montreal. This amuses me for several reasons. First, the American remake is being made in Canada. That the nearly pitch-perfect series is being remade at all. Then there’s this interview with the original cast at Comic-Con, where Russell Tovey seems quite determine to be the only werewolf in our lives.

• So the principle behind Guillermo del Toro’s Haunted Mansion movie is something called the Hatbox Ghost. If you’re not sure what that is, don’t worry, you’re not alone. It was pulled from the ride almost immediately after it went online because they couldn’t make it work. There are cults around the legendary Hatbox Ghost. I have to wonder if you can center a movie on a mere piece of the ride that was a failure anyway.

• Ursula Le Guin is notoriously protective of her stories, and has in the past regretted anyone giving their interpretation of them. But a film student wrote her a handwritten letter asking permission to turn one of her short stories into a movie, and she’s granted permission. The film was made for only £12,000 and recycles props from Thunderbirds. The old ways are sometimes the best.

• Red Riding Hood, starring Amanda Seyfried, is going to be a fantasy dream, reuniting fans of Harry Potter with Gary Oldman (Sirius Black), Julie Christie (Madame Rosemerta), plus Twilight’s Billy Burke (Charlie Swan), and a host of other fantasy favorites. You really need to go look at the costumes though – the purple velvet is priceless!

• Tangled (teaser poster above) is Disney trying to strike a balance between the speed and cost effectiveness of CGI while retaining that Disney animation look. Here’s how they went about it.

What’s on the Telly?

Are you guys tired of talking about Being Human yet? I hope not! Because we’ve got two episodes and some exciting news to catch up on, and even some spoilers (for American viewers anyway, most of whom don’t have access to the magic I use in order to see these episodes as they air on British TV!).

Scroll down to the next section is you don’t want to know what Being Human viewers are currently seeing across the pond.

After a fair bit of faffing about and sketchy character development this season, Being Human finally hit its (albeit uneven) stride this week, and holy blood-stained Bible, it’s getting good!

We finally got some insight into why exactly Professor Kemp is so dead set on eradicating vampires — He was a priest! They killed his family! — which was obvious, but heart-breaking and nicely/creepily played by Donald Sumpter.

We also saw, in convenient flashback form, Mitchell’s (Aidan Turner) first attempt at going dry and how extremely needy and dependent that makes him, proving that he is yet another bad boy vampire in need of a woman to save him. Et tu, BBC? Say it ain’t so.

George (Russell Tovey) fell in love and moved out of the house he shared with Annie and Mitchell, and in with his new girlfriend, Sam, and Sam’s daughter, Molly, who is either creepy or downright manipulative (possibly both!). It’s still up in the air whether or not he’ll have any more luck with this girlfriend and what I mean by “luck,” well, not turning her into a werewolf would be a good place to start. Things don’t look great for George’s love prospects though, not with the apparent return of Nina (Sinead Keenan) next week.  She’s been hoodwinked by the nefarious Professor Kemp, who wants not only to destroy all of Bristol’s vampires, but to put all of Bristol’s werewolves into some sort of pressure chamber as well, and squeeze the wolf out of them. Good luck with that, Professor.

Annie (Lenora Crichlow) got a bit of something old and something new these past two weeks. She spent the entire fifth episode babysitting a ghost baby, who she named Tim. (Later to be revealed as Rufus. We prefer Tim.)

While this was clearly just a plot line to give Annie something to do during a heavily Mitchell-centric episode, it was adorable to see a ghost baby delighted by Annie’s poorly told ghost stories and come on: doesn’t the dead girl deserve a laugh?

Episode 6 also took us to the other end of the gambit, when Annie, distraught by George’s decision to move out, took to wandering the streets and wound up encountering a convenient plot point, Alan The Psychic. Through Alan, Annie made contact with her mother and helped her heal from the pain of Annie’s death. She also helped another ghost resolve his own death so that he could pass through Death’s Door.

(By the way, if anyone understands why Annie is so keen to help other ghosts pass over, but is herself desperate not to, let me know in the comments, yeah?)

And Mitchell. Poor, poor Mitchell fell off of the blood wagon and into love. Those supernaturals fall hard and fast, don’t they? Unfortunately, he fell for Lucy Jaggat (Lyndsey Marshal), who happens to be in cahoots with Professor Kemp. Together they plotted to blow up of Vampire Headquarters, with all of Bristol’s vampires inside. We’ll have to wait until next week to find out whether or not Mitchell was killed (I’m guessing not), but we did find out how vampires organize their meetings in their funeral parlor — they Tweet it!

Hey, why not? Works for the rest of the world.

For the record, here’s what I think those Tweets might look like:

Bits and Pieces

If you’re skipping past the spoilers, here is where you want to pick up! Exciting news of American Being Human fans. BBC America has announced that they’ve secured the rights to not only the show’s second season, to begin airing late this summer, but to the yet to-be-produced third season (which is moving to Cardiff — Torchwood crossover much?) as well. (Thanks to Vincent Austin for the heads up!)

But even though they’re losing Being Human, Bristol can continue to boast just a little. Keeping themselves entertained during this long, cold winter break, Star Wars fans took to the streets there on Saturday. More than 100 Jedi, of all shapes and sizes (and with all manner of light saber) turned out for a relatively impromptu flashmob, organized through the power of Facebook. If only we could get them all together with the Harry Potter fans who still have months to wait before the release of the first Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows film. That’s a duel I’d love to see.

If you still need to sort our your own wand work, maybe you should check out the new Harry Potter board game. Warner Bros. announced this week that they’re releasing a new Hogwarts game, as well as new Lego sets this fall, in anticipation of the upcoming films. Maybe that, along with the news that ABC Family will be premiering Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on February 27th will help make the wait a little more bearable.

Merlin fans are also stuck in a holding pattern, with the show’s third season just beginning production. Pierrefond’s (Camelot, to you Muggles) website has been updated to reflect the start of filming in April, with the show’s premier still set for September. And until then, C21medianet.com is reporting that Merlin has magicked up an iPhone app! It’ll be available in April in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian. Apparently, it’ll be a role-playing game and you can be either Merlin or Arthur.

Personally, I’m picking Merlin. He does hold the power of life and death, after all.

That’s all for this time. Until next week, mischief managed!

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WHAT’S ON MY TELLY

George howls at the moon

Lots of “gets” on this week’s Being Human! George (Russell Tovey) got a new girlfriend, a new job and a new cage in which to transform. Annie (Lenora Crichlow) got a new ghost (one with control over Death’s Door even), and Mitchell (Aidan Turner) got a coronation, apparently, as the new king of the vampires.

And we, the viewers, got a glimpse of what has made this show so great all along: George, Mitchell and Annie simply sitting together, helping one another and working toward a common goal.

This season has seen plenty of action: we’ve seen Nina, George’s no-nonsense girlfriend, transforming into a werewolf the first time, Annie got a job and a boyfriend (another crazy one, unfortunately — when will she learn?), and Mitchell’s story has been perhaps the most compelling of all, as he attempts to snuff out centuries of behavior and turn a coven of vampires into docile, non-blood suckers.

It sounds like a joke — a ghost, a werewolf and a vampire walk into a bar — but the heart of this show, the thing that keeps us coming back for more is these three, these unlikely three. We want to see the ways in which the defeat the odds, we want to see how they take care of each other, how they persevere, how they ultimately come out on top.

And, well, if it happens to come with awesome CGI and the sort of storytelling that has the power to make me both laugh hysterically and want to crawl out of my skin, all the better.

NEWS FROM ACROSS THE POND

The biggest new of the week is surely that Merlin has been picked up by SyFy to air in April.

While the network’s website has a 13-hour season 1 marathon listed on March 28th, the Powers That Be have informed TheTorchOnline.com that they will be airing season one every Friday starting April 2nd, and then season 2 after that. I don’t want to wait that long for season 2, but I for one am just excited that the show is returning to American airwaves (season 1 ran last summer, to pretty disastrous ratings, on NBC).

Unfortunately, there isn’t much more fantasy programming for you on the telly this week. There’s plenty out on DVD, though, so tug on your wellies and brave the weather for these new series: Merlin, Complete 2nd Series, Box Set; Doctor Who - The Masque Of Mandragora; Dante’s Inferno; and for the kiddos, Wolverine And The X-Men Vol.3 (from the CBBC show) and Blue Dragon - Series 1.

That’s it for this week! Until next time, mischief managed!

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Today we debut a new column that looks at fantasy and genre projects from the other side of the pond!

Nearly the whole of the UK has spent the last month covered in a blanket of snow and ice, but at least everyone has had great television to keep then entertained.

The cast of Being Human cozies up

January saw the return of the BBC breakout hit, Being Human, a supernatural Three’s Company. Being Human, which is in turns funny and terrifying, follows the lives of three twenty-somethings, John Mitchell (Aidan Turner), George Sands (Russell Tovey), and Annie Sawyer (Lenora Crichlow). It just so happens that these housemates are a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost, respectively.

Being Human premiered with nearly a million and a half viewers, well up from the second season’s finale. Perhaps this could be attributed to our apparent never-ending fascination with vampires, but I think it’s more the intriguing storylines (a vampire who doesn’t want to drink blood?), the fantastic score, and a cast that is not only talented, but so gorgeous they’re gracing the current cover of Gay Times.

In fact, Being Human has been so wildly successful, American TV has decided to do what it does best: make a remake! SyFy has chosen husband and wife team Jeremy Carver (Supernatural) and Anna Fricke (Privileged) to repackage the show for American viewers. This, combined with the announcement that Fox is developing a U.S. version of Torchwood, makes us wonder: can an Americanized Doctor Who be far off?

We hope so. We hope it’s very, very far off indeed.

Colin Morgan as Merlin

We’ve also got some news on the BBC hit show Merlin. BBC has announced that the series has been renewed for a third season. We got our first (often ham-fisted) glimpses of the Arthur (Bradley James) and Guinevere (Angel Coulby) romance in season two, as well as a new, darker Morgana (Katie McGrath) whose magic is no longer quite so secret, so it’s presumable that season three will start to look a little more like something that won’t make Arthurian scholars turn in their graves. No word yet as to when season three will begin production.

American Merlin fans have something to look forward to as well. The show was actually a co-production with the NBC network, which ran the show last summer — to disastrous ratings, alas. There’s virtually no chance that NBC will bring the show back to prime-time, but it seems likely that season two will appear on one of its sister channels — most likely, SyFy, though at this point, both NBC and SyFy have declined to comment on their plans to TheTorchOnline.com.

In more solid news, the first season will finally be available in DVD in the US starting April 20th.

David Tennant also ended his four-year run as the Doctor in Doctor Who in January, closing out with a two episode arc, “The End of Time”.

The episodes saw not only the return of the Doctor’s nemesis, the Master (John Simm), but of a whole slew of Time Lords, every companion the tenth Doctor has traveled with, even Gallifrey itself. After publicity photos of Donna (Catherine Tate), the Doctor’s previous companion (who lost her memories after a Human-Time Lord meta-crisis) surfaced, there was hope that the Doctor could restore her fuzzled brain and that together again they would save the world.

No such luck, but at least she made off with a new husband and a sackful of money which is, I suppose, someone’s idea of a happy ending.

Well, that’s it for this week. Until next week, mischief managed!

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Welcome to The Tinder Box! This is a new weekly column here at TheTorchOnline.com, appearing every Friday. In it, we editors can give our opinions on the week’s big stories in fantasy entertainment, spill some insider-y scoops and gossip based on recent tips and interviews, and also tell you whatever the hell else happens to be on our minds.

Because it’s not like you already get enough of our opinions, what with my Ask the Oracle column and all the articles, essays, and reviews we churn out every day!

The column is called The Tinder Box; the name of the site is TheTorchOnline.com. Get it? A tinder box lights the spark that lights the torch?

Okay, moving on!

STEVEN SPIELBERG TAKES ON PIRATES

It looks like the late Michael’s Crichton’s last book, Latitudes, a pirate novel coming this fall, will end up a movie, possibly directed by Steven Spielberg.

Incidentally, that’s a great title for a pirate novel.

I used to be a big fan of Michael Critchon, back before he started writing books like Prey.

Worst. Book. Ever.

In my mind, State of Fear didn’t help either. Critchon’s dead — he doesn’t have to deal with the consequences of the fact that he was almost certainly completely wrong about global warming being no big deal. But thanks to all the publicity that book got, we probably lost about five years in our fight against it.

WAIT. I THOUGHT WRITERS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SMART

There were two big stories last week regarding gay people and their place in genre of fantasy/science fiction.

Earlier, we covered the controversy around and would-be boycott of a new video game, Shadow Complex, based on the work of Orson Scott Card, an increasingly outspoken anti-gay bigot.

But I’m not quite sure what to think of the even more bizarre tale of fantasy author (and Nebula finalist) John C. Wright, who responded to the news that the SyFy Channel, after years of ignoring gay and lesbian characters, was going to try to be more inclusive, with a blog-screed that read, in part:

The Sci-Fi Channel … has recoiled in craven fear and trembling when lectured by homosex activists, who gave the SF channel an “F” rating on their political correctness. Alas, the thoughtcrime! Not enough perverts on TV! The children have to be indoctrinated!

I am hoping, of course, that future shows will also portray sadomasochism and bondage in a positive light — we are all looking forward to FLASH GORDON’S TRIP TO GOR, I hope. Love affairs with corpses, small children, and farm animals will also be on display in a natural nonchalant fashion in the new raft of progressive shows, titles such as I DREAM OF STINKY, PEDERASTY JUNCTION, and OLD MACDONALD HAD A SHEEP — but no Mormons, whose moral standing we all abhor. The only good thing about Mormons, as we all know, is their polygamy. That we can approve of. Anything that offends the Patriarchy, we like. Evil is our good.

The post has since been taken down (which says something about the courage of his convictions), but it, and a non-apology now on his site in which he refers to “characters of any description, gay or straight (or practitioners of sexual habits as yet undreamed by modern men),” pretty much sums up his logical mistake: he sees gay people in terms of sexual acts (and thinks of us as “perverts,” apparently).

Yes, the editor of this site (me!) is gay, and has long been annoyed by how gay people in fantasy are virtually always (a) non-existent, or (b) villains.

Anyway, it’s like Wright has never met an actual gay person, or maybe he didn’t pay attention when he has. Does he really not understand that being gay, especially the “public” part, is about relationships — that it’s ultimately about love? What sort of person equates that with having sex with children, or animals, or S&M?

I confess, this stuns me. It’s not that I didn’t know there were folks like this in the world; someone is watching simple-minded television idiots like Glenn Beck.

But I guess I thought Orson Scott Card was an exception. How can you be an adult of education and intelligence in 2009 — a writer, no less! — and be this uninformed about gay people and, frankly, this stupid?

Yes, yes, his problem is not with “gay people,” he says — why, some of his best friends are gay! — but with “gay activists” and the forces of “political correctness.” But herein lies still more astounding ignorance: “activists” are responsible for literally every social change since the dawn of history, including every positive recent change for gay folks (like the fact that we’re no longer thrown in mental institutions or jail). The majority has literally never granted an oppressed minority rights and freedoms without agitation — usually intense agitation.

In fact, I’ve covered the story of gay inclusion on SyFy (extensively), and I know for a fact that, on this subject, they’ve pretty much had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century — just as all previous networks had to be dragged forward in terms of more enlightened portrayals of women, racial minorities, and, yes, even Christians and other religious groups.

And who was doing all that dragging? Activists.

I’ve never read John C. Wright. Now I guess I never will.

SPEAKING OF BOOKS…

…here are two that were surprisingly easy to put down.

I really enjoyed The Outstretched Shadow, the first book in The Obsidian Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory. It wasn’t the most sophisticated fantasy, but it was extremely readable.

But last week, I finally put the sequel, To Light a Candle, down in frustration, and I was only 50 pages from the end. I don’t think I’ve ever done that in my life.

In short, Kellen’s magic had become so powerful, what with visions of the past and future and a magical “rage” that enabled him to defeat virtually any enemy, that the book ceased having any tension at all.

Even more disappointing was Fatal Revenant, the second book in the Third Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson. While I adored the first two trilogies (they’re among my favorite books of all time), I was very disappointed in The Runes of the Earth, the first book in the third trilogy.

But I so love The Land and its characters, so I slogged through it.

Fatal Revenant lost me in the first 50 pages. The book seems so over-written: does nothing happen in The Land that isn’t the most extreme emotion imaginable? Every conversation — and there are a lot of them, since the book so far is conversation after conversation — has someone “falling into a pit of endless despair” or being “engulfed in a tidal wave of nausea.”

Does no one ever just feel slightly annoyed? Or feel a little bit queasy?

Were all the Covenant books written like this, and I just didn’t notice because I was 19 years old?

I can’t talk about what little plot there is without giving away a major spoiler, but suffice to say, it had me even more intensely frustrated.

I will force myself through this book and review it eventually.

But lest you think I’m a complete crank, I am reading several books I love — and those reviews will also soon follow.

THE TINDER BOX TAKES ON THE IDIOT BOX

I’m way behind on my TV-watching, but I just watched the fourth episode of Being Human (the season finale of which airs tomorrow, Saturday, on BBC America).

Man, I wish I’d seen this episode before I wrote my review (I only had screeners for the first three episodes, which were really just “introductions” to the characters).

This is a terrific show! I’m so used to American television where the plot-twists are telegraphed and obvious. But this fourth episode of Being Human did some things that completely surprised me.

I wish I could say there’s more “must see” fantasy TV in the week ahead, but … there really isn’t.

But I am looking forward to the season premiere of Dexter on Sunday.

THE TINDER BOX AT THE BOX OFFICE

Two fantasy-esque movies opening in theaters today: The Final Destination — how many installments have their been now? — and Halloween II.

Speaking of Halloween II, earlier this week, we asked, “Is Michael Myers Supernatural or Just Really Motivated?”

In any event, these both look like Netflixers to me, which is why there are no reviews of either.

No new fantasy/sci-fi movies out on DVD this week, but I did watch — or rather I tried to watch — last spring’s Alien Trespass. Nice idea: a send-up of cheesy 50 sci-fi movies (which I confess I love).

Wow, what a bad movie. It was a reasonable accurate homage, but someone forget to tell the filmmakers that no one wants to watch a mere homage for two hours.

Well, this week’s flame has sputtered out, but join me again next week when I promise I won’t be nearly so critical and cranky.

Oh, who am I kidding?

You’ve heard it a million times: the cast of a television show insist that they’re all the best of friends, and that the close friendship you see on the screen is exactly the way it is in real life.

It’s not until years after the show has wrapped that you learn the truth: that the backstage squabbling was far more interesting than anything you saw on-screen.

But the stars of the well-received new BBC America drama Being Human, about a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost who share an apartment together, insist that they really are great off-screen friends. And after meeting them all and watching them interact at a gathering of the Television Critics Association in Pasadena, I’m convinced they’re telling the truth.

“We’re so different, all of us, quite different people,” says Aidan Turner, who plays the vampire, of his off-screen relationship with his co-stars. “Russell [Tovey, who plays the werewolf] can be quite extroverted sometimes, and I’m quite the opposite in weird ways. [Our tight friendship] just happened. It’s a funny thing. I did another series after this one where it’s about a brotherhood in Victorian London, and we knew we had to get along, and we did [but it wasn't the same]. I don’t know why it works, why you get on with some people, and sometimes you don’t.”

“No, I can’t stand them,” says Tovey when asked to confirm that he’s friends with his co-stars. “They’re horrible! They’re lying!”

But when he’s done joking, Tovey says, “We are friends. I’ve been spoiled. I did The History Boys, and there were seven other boys, and we genuinely got on well.”

Being Human is shot in the U.K. city of Bristol, and for the course of filming the series, the actors all live in flats next to each other.

“Even while filming, we’d all end up in one of our apartments,” says Lenora Crichlow, who plays the ghost. “For different reasons. They came to my apartment to eat, we went to Russell’s to watch TV, and we went to Aiden’s to chill out and listen to music.”

“It’s very much life imitating art,” Turner says.

Tovey is quick to point out, “We are different from our characters. In the show, Mitchell is the leader of the house, and we’re like the squabbling children. In life, well, Aiden’s effortlessly cool anyway, I’m a bit more scatty, and Lenora’s cool as well. So I probably am the one who’s a bit more screamy and shouty.”

“It’s such an easy thing to say, because you talk to any actor, and they say the same thing, ‘Yeah, chemistry was easy,’” Turner says. “But [the three of us] just get on, we’re just mates. We’ve been hanging out [even here at this conference] in each others’ hotel rooms, having drinks, talking, shooting the breeze. It’s almost that thing, immediately get comfortable with somebody, and you don’t need to talk, you can just hang out. I know when Russell is maybe not in the best of moods, and I wouldn’t even acknowledge it or say anything. We can just feel each other.”

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)

Q: I watched the first couple of episodes of Being Human, and liked it okay, but it bugged me that the girl had to be so passive and emotional. I know that’s what you’d expect of a ghost, so why didn’t they break the stereotype and make her the werewolf? What do you think? — Linda, Whidbey Island, WA

A: The Oracle definitely shares your feelings that the show didn’t break any gender stereotypes, at least in the first few episodes. But I was pleased to see that change in the third episode, where she becomes much more active.

The Oracle was curious what the actress who plays Annie, Lenora Crichlow, thought, so I decided to ask her.

“I think Annie’s a fantastic role model for women,” she tells TheTorchOnline.com. “I get annoyed with this idea that female traits are weak, to be emotional and vulnerable [is to be a bad thing]. Annie’s vulnerability, her compassion, her empathy, her wanting to do things for people, all become what save her really. Later on in the series, her empathy and her intuition as a woman become integrated into her supernatural self.”

According to Crichlow, the first season is “a journey of empowerment [for Annie, but] it’s lovely that she is vulnerable at the beginning, because I think a lot of women are. We lose ourselves in relationships, we sacrifice our careers, and all that. Not just women, obviously, but it a common thing for women. But she can’t stay the same, if Annie wants to move on, if she wants to be seen. I’ve been through that. I know what’s expected of me, but I can turn it up a notch and reach my potential. Annie does a similar thing.”

Q: Is it true that the Laurell K. Hamilton series of novels, Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, is being made into a movie or TV show? — Kethlyn

A: The Oracle can reveal that in March, IFC and Lion’s Gate announced that they had optioned the series of novels, which is now also a series of graphic novels, with plans to turn them into a TV movie. At the time, they said that filming would begin this summer for a 2010 air-date.

But when contacted by the Oracle, the producers said there was nothing further to report (something the Oracle interprets to mean that filming is not beginning this summer). Hamilton’s agent suggests you check the author’s site for future updates.

Still, as long as the current vampire hysteria lasts, it’s a pretty good bet this project will get made eventually.

Q: You always hear about how C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were good friends who each week read to each other from their drafts of Narnia and Lord of the Rings. It’s a great story, but is it true? — TheMan, Chicago, IL

A: The Oracle can reveal that, in fact, it is. The two were members of The Inklings, the famous Oxford University discussion group that met weekly (and sometimes also daily, at the local pub) to discuss their own and others’ books, and to encourage two things: strong narrative, or plot, and the genre of fantasy. For a time, Tolkien and Lewis may even have been each other’s closest friends, and Tolkien definitely contributed to Lewis’ move from atheism to Christianity; Lewis eventually became one of the most famous Christian theologians of all time.

But Tolkien and Lewis did have occasional fallings-out, sometimes serious ones, for all the ordinary reasons: disagreements over religion (Tolkien was annoyed by Lewis’ embrace of the Anglican Church, which Tolkien detested and considered anti-Catholic), and women (Tolkien felt that Lewis’ relationship with Joy Davidman, the subject of the movie Shadowlands, intruded on their friendship).

But each absolutely shared and no doubt received important feedback from the other on their most famous works, The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. (Interestingly, Tolkien didn’t think much of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, arguing that the overt religious message over-powered the story.)

Q: A few weeks back, in a special about J.K. Rowling, they said she shortened her name to initials per the editor’s request so boys wouldn’t be put off by a female author. I can think of several examples of women fantasy authors going by initials or male sounding nicknames, but does it still happen as much these days? How prevalent is it in fantasy and sci-fi? — Angela, Mooresville, NC  USA

A: The Oracle is sure he doesn’t have to point out that there was a time when female authors almost had to pick a male-sounded pseudonym just to be taken seriously by the world at large. George Eliot anyone?

“Very few writers still do this, and I don’t see much advantage to doing it,” says literary agent Jennifer DeChiara of the Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency. “When I see it on a manuscript, I think, ‘pretentious,’ and I’m sure most editors think the same thing. It also gets in the way of book promotion — how can you send an author around or talk about them if you’re hiding who they really are?”

Still, although this is far less common than it used to be, it’s probably more common in genres that have large male readerships, like fantasy and sci-fi. For example, fantasy author Margaret Ogden chose the pen name “Robin Hobb,” precisely because it’s gender-neutral. Likewise, Katherine Alice Applegate, the author of the Animorphs, Everworld, and Remnants children’s fantasy book series, chose to go by “K.A. Applegate.”

Another famous example is Dorothy Catherine, or “D.C.” Fontana, Gene Roddenberry’s former secretary who became a television writer for many classic science fiction shows, including three Star Trek series, The Six Million Dollar Men, Land of the Lost, He-Man, and Logan’s Run (she also wrote under several completely “male” pen-names).

But the Oracle believes such pen names will now mostly be a thing of the past, for two distinct reasons: (1) anti-female prejudice even in genre circles is less now, in part because brave, unapologetic pioneers like Ursula K. Le Guin proved that brilliant genre writing knows no gender and that such pseudonyms were not necessary, and (2) the female readership of science fiction and fantasy, always much bigger than most publishers knew, is now so large that a female name might not only not be a hindrance, it might even be an asset.

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)