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Doux News: August 4, 2013

This Week: Too Cute for Words – Joss Whedon Podcast – Cosmos – Rock Salt is the New Black – This Week in Casts – The End of Nikita – John Williams, Star Wars VII – This Week in Sonnets – Upcoming Shows (Organized by Era) – Stephen King On Screen – Your Moustache Gives You Strength and Dignity – Women Who Talk Too Much – This Week In Cats


Too Cute for Words

Alyson Hannigan and Alexis Densiof are going to renew their vows after ten years of marriage. “YAY renewal!” tweeted Hannigan. Here’s to at least another decade of adorable wedded bliss! May the happy couple only live the first half of this delightful Willow quote:

It goes great…You spend time together, feelings grow deeper, and one day, without even realizing it, you find you're in love. Time stops. It feels like the whole world's made for you two, and you two alone.

Until the day one of you leaves, and rips the still-beating heart from the other, who's now a broken, hollow mockery of the human condition.



Joss Whedon Podcast

Joss Whedon guested on the Nerdist podcast just after Comic-Con, and the full 80-minute episode is available here. The Jossy goodness starts around 3:16, although there’s a lot of background noise (including Joss’s children) for a few minutes: the podcast was taped in Joss’s home. Around the 59-minute mark, he discusses his favorite book (The Little Princess, which has resonance for us Angel fans) and his plans for his next project, whatever that might be.


Cosmos

Fox premiered a trailer for the upcoming Cosmos reboot planned for 2014. Cosmos originally aired in 1980 on PBS and featured Carl Sagan. Judging from the new trailer, the new Cosmos will cast Neil deGrasse Tyson (who is my favorite astrophysicist) in the superhero role.

I'm too young to have seen the original series, but this seems like it’s a big deal:





Rock Salt is the New Black

Vintage Vixen, who has a lovely fashion and photo website, crafted a Supernatural-themed dress just for kicks. I love the sneakiness of it: at first glance, the dress looks like a traditional 1950s housewife New Lookish sundress. A closer glimpse at the spoonflower-designed fabric reveals salt, knives, and holy water.


This Week in Casts

Rashida Jones and Rob Lowe are leaving Parks and Rec this season. Ann Perkins and Chris Trager will depart Pawnee during the season’s thirteenth episode, which will probably air during February sweeps. I literally can't believe it.

• Anna Torv from Fringe has been cast in Ryan Murphy’s upcoming evening soap opera, Open, on Showtime.

True Blood’s Janina Gavankar (Luna) will be a recurring guest star on the next season of The Vampire Diaries.

• Dylan Bruce (Paul from Orphan Black) will guest-star on Arrow. Dylan Bruce is played by Tatiana Maslany.


The End of Nikita

The final six episodes of Nikita will air in late fall/early winter on The CW. November and December are traditionally slow times for the networks (Especially The CW, which puts its shows on incredibly long hiatuses. Hiati. Haiti. Whatever.), but network president Mark Pedowitz says this will be an opportunity for an “appropriate sendoff” for the series.


John Williams, Star Wars VII

Lucasfilm announced that composer John Williams will score Star Wars VII (that’s the next one to come out, if you’re as confused as I am by the numbering system). Williams discussed the brain-trust behind the upcoming film, praising JJ Abrams and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy as “two people that I think are perfectly chosen to continue George Lucas's great odyssey. They're both young, they're both extremely gifted, they have tremendous energy.”


This Week in Sonnets





Upcoming Shows (Organized by Era)

• Showtime teased some news about the upcoming Penny Dreadful at this week’s TCA press tour. The “literary-horror” series will star Josh Harnett, and feature Dr. Frankenstein, his monster, Dorian Grey, and a few characters from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Set in the late-Victorian era, Penny Dreadful features a “fake cowboy” and lots of thrills, but not much more information at this point.

• Steven Soderbergh—who is challenging Stephen King for the title of Hardest Working Retired Guy—is on tap to produce and direct all ten episodes of the upcoming Showtime series Knick, starring Clive Owen. Knick is set in an early-twentieth-century New York hospital.

• The CW is all about the backdoor pilots right now. A rumored Supernatural spin-off is in the works, with the new characters introduced in the second half of SPN Season Nine. The new show would be set in Chicago, which will look a lot like Vancouver, because Canada is subtly taking over the world. Oh, Canada.

• The CW has announced plans to begin laying the groundwork for a Flash origin series. Barry Allen will begin to discover his superfast identity on Arrow this fall before dashing off to his own series at some point in the near future.


Stephen King On Screen

Inspired by the success of the just-renewed Under the Dome, CBS has commissioned a new miniseries of Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers. I’d like to declare that an Officially Horrible Idea, especially since we haven’t gotten one reader complaint since Sam T. Cat made me stop watching Under the Dome.


Your Moustache Gives You Strength and Dignity

The BBC has released a new teaser-trailer for the upcoming season of Sherlock.





Women Who Talk Too Much

Comic-Con’s famous Hall H, where all the supercool popular stuff happens, included a Women Who Kick Ass panel on one of the busiest days of the convention. The panel included Katee Sackhoff, Michelle Rodriguez, Maggie Q, Tatiana Maslany, and Danai Gurira, which sounds like a wonderful combination of women who are, in fact, genuine ass-kickers. (Michelle Rodriguez really could defeat zombies in real life, and I am played by Tatiana Maslany.)

But apparently, the panel’s call for an increased diversity of roles for women was not warmly received: more than one blogger (check this one out for a good perspective) commented on the lukewarm audience vibe, snarky side comments, and one guy at the end who declared that the panel’s title should really be Women Who Talk Too Much.

Both the above link and this one, from Todd VanDerWeff, are subjective assessments of what happened in the hall. After all, it is impossible to objectively measure the temperature of a room, and it might be that we’re giving the “women who talk too much” guy attention just because he has a loud voice. But taken together, the two accounts of the pushback to a call for more female writers and more awareness of gendered characterizations make for a frightening account of resistance to inclusivity and diversity in our neck of the entertainment woods.


This Week in Cats

Sunbunny, the Doux Reviews Twitter Expert, discovered this lovely homage to The Avengers, if all of the superheroes (and some friends) were played by cats. It is just as cute as it sounds.


21 comments:

  1. I was very interested in the two articles about the WWKA panels at SDCC. Even more interesting are the comments that people have left on the articles. I wonder what it is about women that leaves the fanboys so uncomfortable?

    Under the Dome sat on my DVR for a while, but I finally deleted the episodes I hadn't watched. It would have been interesting to see what its numbers would have been if it weren't a summer show and had to compete with the "standard" season.

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  2. I don't like to give my info to new people all the time, so I will post about the Supernatural spin off here: I'd like to see it be about Kevin and his mom (hopefully we discover that Crowley lied and that she's still alive). He's the right age for the CW demographic... fits right in with Supernatural lore... and he's someone who probably wouldn't mind staying put in one city.

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  3. Just to clarify, the Open pilot is for HBO, previously Showtime but not any more, last I heard.

    Cheers!

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  4. Josie, what a terrific issue of Doux News. It might be my favorite, ever.

    I'm not sure what I think about a Supernatural spinoff. I love the SPN universe, but for me, it's all about the Winchesters, and the two actors who are playing them. Will the universe be as compelling if it's not about them?

    Hulk Cat. Definitely the best one.

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  5. The whole comic-con discussion about women made me think of this video:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4Rjy5yW1gQ

    Sexism anywhere is annoying/disgusting/frustrating/rage-inducing but especially so when it comes from people who espouse the belief that MEN who are different should be treated better...

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  6. I second Billie. Best Doux News ever.

    I LOVE that dress. That's what Annie Edison would wear if she were a hunter. Um, can that be the spinoff because that sounds awesome.

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  7. Speaking of sexism, Louie C.K. called Tatiana Maslany a bitch at the Television Critics Awards. Feel free to be outraged.

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  8. Great Doux News! My favourite bits - the fact that you have a favourite astrophysicist and your observation that Canada is subtly taking over the world (how else would we do it?).
    As for sexism at con - not surprised but suitably annoyed. If Louie C.K. called someone a bitch it was probably a compliment - I always take it that way when someone calls me that!

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  9. a.m., great video!

    Hey, everyone: go watch a.m.'s video link!

    (Weird thing: I think I know one of the women in that video.)

    Drnanamom, I appreciate your openness about the plans for Canadian world domination. I welcome the arrival of my friendly, polite, Canadian overlords.

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  10. I watched the video and loved it and tweeted the link so all of our Twitter followers can watch it and love it too.

    Someone should seriously do a sociological study of sexism in nerd culture. I would read the hell out of that dissertation.

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  11. Josie and sunbunny, I'm glad you both liked the video! Since I get most of my geek fix from Doux Reviews, I didn't realize that sexism in nerd culture was such a big problem, but the song and video both made me understand it a little better and be a little more optimistic about the future, too.

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  12. Doux Reviews is a safe haven in nerdom. There is so much hate out there in other places, a.m. SO MUCH. Thankfully we have our LOVELY LOVELY LOVELY admins (Josie and Billie) to keep everyone polite and friendly, although interference is rarely required here. We really only attract nice people. THANK GOD.

    I really don't consider myself a nerd and don't partake in many nerdy activities, but I am on Tumblr a lot and (some) people are constantly railing against girl geeks and their 'fakeness.' It's so stupid. It's probably just boys (yes, boys, not men) who are intimidated by women because they're stupid and pathetic and stupid. And pathetic.

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  13. Billie, you're literally the second person to tell me that in the space of five minutes. Which made MY day (or, you know, night). So yay! Everyone is happy.

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  14. Ok, it just happened a third time. Is anyone else having a bad day, because apparently I'm magic tonight?

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  15. You just said something really sweet that made me feel good, sunbunny. I'm having a pretty good evening, actually. Except for the lack of Dexter, which is still enraging me.

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  16. I don't have much to say, except great article! And I hope the Supernatural spin off is at least passable. I just don't think anything will be as amazing as our 8+ years of Supernatural. You guys are all awesome!

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  17. I expected someone else to chime in with this, but no one has, so I'll give it a go: despite the Hall H "Women Who Kick Ass" panel and a.m.'s great video, it's worth pointing out that jerks are in the minority in the fandom.

    Just look at our site: Paul, Mark, Panda, J.D., Gus, Ben P. Duck...not one of those men is a sexist jerk. They're all awesome.

    If someone grows up feeling ostracized for their interests, it must be easy to fall into a "Members Only" attitude. Hopefully the fanboys who do take that stance will grow out of it once they realize that female geeks aren't threatening; we're all here for the same reason. But in the meantime, let's not forget to praise the awesome men! :-)

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  18. The rampant sexism in the Star Trek fan community can't be all bad. Ben P. Duck and I were participants in a massive flame war (topic: sexism in Star Trek) on a huge Trek discussion list that resulted in us forming our own discussion list. That's also how I met DrNanaMom, although I believe that was later on.

    Our guys do indeed rock.

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