Doctor Who News – Peter Capaldi Is The 12th Doctor

Yesterday, the BBC announced that Peter Capaldi will be the next Doctor in Doctor Who. Capaldi is probably best known for his work as Malcolm Tucker on The Thick Of It. He also was most recently seen on the big screen in World War Z as W.H.O. Doctor (ha!).

Capaldi’s casting is a departure from the recent trend of casting much younger actors to the role of The Doctor in order to court the demographic. Indeed Capaldi is 55, the same age as William Hartnell when he was cast as the very first Doctor back in 1963. Reportedly, Capaldi was the only person show runner Steven Moffat was interested in for the role. As of the Doctor Who panel back at San Diego Comic-Con back in July, Moffat had said that there had been no casting decisions made with regard to the 12th Doctor. Nice to see Moffat continue his streak of being upfront and transparent with the show’s fans.

Check out the video of Peter Capaldi’s introduction to Doctor Who fans from the BBC television special that aired yesterday, after the jump.

Electra Woman and Dyna Girl and OMIGOD IS THAT MARKIE POST?!

So it’s been a while since I’ve contributed anything of value to the site. In my defense, I was trapped under something heavy and had to gnaw off a foot to escape. Fortunately, it wasn’t one of my feet. Long story, but now I’m here and and Spam will never taste the same again.

Anyway, if you’re anything like me, you are a child of the seventies and watched the Krofft Superstar Hour.  If you’re a whole lot like me, you had vaguely inappropriate thoughts about two characters on that show – Electra Woman and Dyna Girl. They were your standard 70’s-issue crime fighting duo. But did you know that there was an attempt to resurrect those characters in 2001? Well, you do now. The WB (back when there was such a thing) ordered a pilot of Electra Woman and Dyna Girl starring none other than TV’s Markie Post. Yep, Christine from Night Court played Electra Woman as hard drinking, easy skanking, and washed-up living in a trailer park. She’s brought out of retirement by a hero-worshiping college student who eventually takes on the role of the new Dyna Girl.

Now, if Crisis on Infinite Midlives stands for anything, it’s for beer and sideboob. But if we stood for three things, that third thing would be the weird ass flotsam and jetsam of comics culture. And I warn you, it gets pretty weird up in here. With that, I give you Electra Woman and Dyna Girl – the lost and unaired pilot.

Check it out, after the jump.

They Call Him: Barry, Barry, Barry – CW Announces The Flash As Arrow Spin Off

The CW, buoyed by the success of last fall’s DC television superhero foray, Arrow, is taking steps to expand into other DC properties, beginning with the introduction of Barry Allen in episodes 8, 9 and 20, according to the series executive producer, Greg Berlanti, in the New York Daily News. Barry Allen, better known to comics fandom as The Flash, will initially demonstrate no power set in his debut within the CW’s slowly evolving DC TV universe, however, says Berlanti, “He does need powers to become The Flash. And he will be The Flash. He will wear a red costume, and he will go by that name.” If his introduction is successful, then he will be spun off into his own series.

The movie of The Flash pitched during this past Comic-Con is still a “go” for 2016, with Berlanti credited for both director and as one of the writers of the screenplay. Meanwhile, Amazon, a proposed Wonder Woman origin story that would have focused on a younger Diana, in the same vein as the younger Clark Kent in the 10 season Smallville, is “on pause”, according to CW President Mark Pedowitz in remarks made during the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour yesterday. “It’s better to wait and get it right than put it on now.”

Better to wait and get it right for Amazon, but the CW is going to fast track a Flash TV show as an Arrow spin off after introducing the character over just three episodes?

Let’s take a look at how well The Flash fared the last time they tried this back in 1990.

Turbulence: SDCC 2013 Skybound Comics Panel

It is getting late in San Diego Comic-Con, and the true fatigue hysteria is beginning to set in. I personally have not slept longer than six hours in the past four nights, and considering my diet in that time has varied wildly from gourmet triple-creme brie to greasy patty melts to tater tots, washed down with everything from Starbucks iced coffee to Stone IPA to hotel room self-brewed coffee to Coors Light, I am beginning to break down physically. And considering I am writing this with only about two hours to spare before I have to haul my shattered carcass to the convention floor to attempt to obtain some Goddamned thing called a Plush Zerg for contributor Lance Manion (and knowing Lance, this “convention exclusive” can only be obtained in the third stall of the mezzanine men’s room), I am staring goggle-eyed at a notebook full of details from yesterday’s Skybound Comics panel.

Skybound is, if you are not familiar, the personal publishing imprint at Image Comics for creator of The Walking Dead Robert Kirkman. Meaning that, if you have picked up one of Kirkman’s comics – The Walking Dead, Invincible, or Super Dinosaur, off the top of my head – it was a Skybound book. But it is not a vanity imprint by any stretch of the imagination; Kirkman has been bringing other creators into the fold to release books, including the recent Thief of Thieves. And based on what we were told in the panel yesterday, there are a variety of other books on the way, covering genres from westerns to horror to 70s grindhoue-style revenge flicks, indicating that if we wait long enough, we will eventually see the Skybound bullet on a romance comics, if not some form of furry yiff-tacular.

Jesus, I’m tired.

Joe’s Comics. And Joe’s Movies. And Joe’s TV Shows: SDCC 2013’s Spotlight On J. Michael Straczynski

We attended several panels yesterday, and will be writing up more extensive write-ups of at least one of them later or tomorrow (Robert Kirkman’s Skybound panel in particular was interesting), but in the meantime, I wanted to put up something that was interesting, but not particularly comics newsworthy.

Every year of the eight we have attended San Diego Comic-Con, J. Michael Straczynski has hosted a Spotlight panel, where he talks about some of the stuff that he’s working on, but mostly spends his time answering any and all questions posed to him. Be they inquiries about the infamous “Spider-Man Sells His Soul To The Devil To Get Younger Poontang” story in One More Day, or the reasoning behind taking on the controversial Before Watchmen books, to whether or not he liked The Hobbit, he will answer any question… provided it isn’t posed by some naive foreigner.

And you can see this for yourself, as we took video of big chunks of Straczynski’s panel this year, and have included those videos here. But now, a disclaimer: some of these videos may or may not have minor hitches in them. I’m seeing them on my two-year-old tablet via shitty hotel WiFi, but then again, on this rotten, overloaded connection (that only cost me $14.95! For 24 whole hours! And, due to the three hours it took to upload a handful of minute-long video clips, prevented me from publishing this last night as originally intended!), Web pages chug when I try to load them in Lynx. So your mileage on a wired connection may vary. If you find them distracting, I apologize.

Either way, you can check them out (and learn his criticisms of The Bible’s literary merit) after the jump.

New Clip From Beware The Batman, DC Nation Wonder Woman Short Preview

Rob is at a screening of Pacific Rim right now. Without me.

Now, I could be all pissed off about that, but I’m not. After all, he may have surrounded himself with giant robots and monsters, but, he left the whiskey here. With me.

So, as the whiskey and I spend the day together, we are finding our own entertainment on the Web. For example, behold the new opening sequence and promo clips from Beware The Batman:

Looks interesting. I’m not entirely convinced it will fill the hole in my heart that was left when DC/Warner Brothers abruptly cancelled Young Justice, but I think the important thing to remember here is that it’s not Teen Titans Go!, thank Christ.

So, what else is out on the Internetz?

#TheFourth – New Tom Baker-centric Doctor Who Promo Clip

Bleeding Cool has posted about a new video from BBC Worldwide. It features camera panning over illustrations of the fourth Doctor’s companions, with audio clips from selected companions and Tom Baker. While it could be that the video is a promo for an upcoming Doctor Who DVD box set Doctor Who: the Doctors Revisited 1-4, which will be released on July 16, it could also be as simple as BBC Worldwide being a bit tongue in cheek – it was released on July 4th. Probably not directed at us Americans for our nation’s birthday, but who knows? The series’ massive popularity of late here in the United States is why Stephen Moffat remains still employed, to the eternal bafflement of many fans of the classic series and the earlier Russell T. Davies reboot episodes.

Rory Kinnear – The New Doctor Who?

Bleeding Cool is reporting that UK paper The Telegraph is running a story that the BBC has offered the part of the 12th Doctor to Skyfall‘s Rory Kinnear.

According to the Telegraph article’s author, Richard Eden:

“He has been offered the part and we are waiting to hear if he will accept,” says my man in the Tardis. “He is the perfect choice.”

The 35-year-old alumnus of St Paul’s School, George Osborne’s alma mater, is the son of Roy Kinnear, the celebrated actor.

He played the MI6 officer Bill Tanner in Skyfall and Quantum of Solace, the James Bond films, and won acclaim for his stage performances in productions of Othello, Mary Stuart and Hamlet.

However, tweets Dr. Who producer, Ed Starling:

Don’t believe what you read about the new #doctorwho being announced this weekend. I think it must be Starburst getting a bit over-excited!

— Ed Stradling (@edstradling) June 8, 2013

Steven Moffat says this morning “I haven’t a clue who it is, we’ve barely started.” So no #doctorwho announcement this evening I fear!

— Ed Stradling (@edstradling) June 8, 2013

Hmmm. A vote in Kinnear’s favor, at as far as I’m concerned, is that he’s at least a bit older than Matt Smith. As an old school Doctor Who fan, I worry that the rampant fan growth among the 18-25 set under Smith will lead to a series of increasingly younger casting choices possibly resulting in the eventual casting of Justin Bieber or a fetus.

However, Stradling did have some interesting things to say about how Smith was cast in Doctor Who in the first place.

Regeneration All Over Again: Matt Smith Leaving Doctor Who, Continuity Is Doomed

It is official now: Matt Smith will be leaving Doctor Who after the upcoming 50th anniversary special and the annual Christmas special.

This is weird and potentially unsettling news for a couple of reasons. The first reason being that Matt Smith has been the face of Doctor Who as it has exploded in worldwide popularity over the past few years. Sure, Christopher Eccleston brought the franchise back to life, and David Tennant ramped its popularity way up, but it wasn’t until Smith that the show graduated to Hall H panels at San Diego Comic-Con and to mainstream press coverage. It’s easy to forget these days that, back in the 90s, Doctor Who was a niche property; back then I belonged to a local private social club (I wasn’t a member of the local Polish-American community, but I was trying to lay into a girl who was. Plus they had dollar beers. But I digress), and they had a Doctor Who pinball machine not because they were fans, but because it was the cheapest and least in-demand machine available at the time.

But not only is showrunner Steven Moffat losing (or firing, because frankly the story and statement aren’t totally clear as to who pulled the trigger on this decision) the guy who fronted the move from niche cheapie show with cardboard sets that you might catch on PBS at 4 a.m. if your cable had gone out, to the forefront of televised sci-fi, but he is opening up a potential can of continuity worms that is sure to turn this year’s Doctor Who panel at SDCC into a geekstorm so intense that it will make the members of the 501st Stormtrooper Legion mutter “nerds” under their breath.

The Lola Is My Penis: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Full Trailer Released

Waitaminute, Waitaminute, WAITaminute… this is a Joss Whedon show… based on a movie by Joss Whedon… and someone he killed comes back to life?

Well, someone who isn’t named Buffy?

Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself here.

It was just Friday when ABC formally announced that they had made an order for Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and normally when a show developed by Whedon is announced, the normal immediate network response is something like, “…and we don’t know when to schedule it or how – or if – it should be promoted! The empty suits on the Top Floor, who split their time between programming decisions and rapid cocaine disposal, have recommended pretending that this program will never air! Now let’s talk about Whitney Cummings’s new magnum opus!”

But that reaction was for shows that aren’t related to a movie property that has grossed roughly a bazillion dollars in the past year. For Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., not only has ABC already announced that it will air on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. this fall (although the premier date has not been announced), but today they have released the first full-length trailer for the show, which you can search for on Google, or perhaps Altavista, to watch on the online video platform of your choice.

Yeah, just kidding; you can check it out after the jump.