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Doux News: April 29, 2012


This week: Fringe renewed -- True Blood author gets another series -- Felicia Day and Benedict Cumberbatch are everywhere -- Dexter casting news and a possible ninth season -- Community and Awake finales -- Comment and Tweet of the Week

Fringe renewed

The big news this week is the unexpected but welcome renewal of Fringe, which will be getting a final season of thirteen episodes -- enough so that fans will have closure and Fringe's corporate overlords will have a hundred episodes to syndicate. Everybody happy!

TVLine's Renewal Scorecard has a list of predictions and crosses out their earlier predictions. Fringe has an entire line of crossouts because their prediction changed five times. Too funny. At least it's funny now that we've gotten good news.

True Blood author Harris gets another series

Charlaine Harris is the author of four series of novels, two of which are traditional mysteries (Lily Bard, Aurora Teagarden) and two of which have supernatural elements (Sookie Stackhouse, Harper Connelly). I've read everything Harris has written and enjoyed them all, but guess which two are my favorites? With True Blood, based on the Sookie Stackhouse series, about to start its fifth season in June on HBO, Syfy has just announced that they've bought the rights to the Harper Connelly series.

The Harper Connelly series doesn't have vampires or werewolves; it's more of a traditional mystery series, but with a supernatural twist. Harper Connelly was struck by lightning when she was a teenager, and now she can "feel" the dead; she literally knows where the bodies are buried and can tell how a person died. She and her stepbrother Tolliver travel around the country selling Harper's services for a fee, and of course, because her work centers around mysterious deaths, stuff happens. There's a darkness about the Harper Connelly series that appeals to me. Now that I'm nearly finished reviewing the Sookie Stackhouse novels (book twelve comes out next week), I've been considering reviewing the Harper Connelly novels, too. Maybe. This summer is going to be pretty jam-packed, review-wise.

Felicia Day and Benedict Cumberbatch. (No, they're not doing anything together)

Felicia Day is everywhere. Buffy, Dr. Horrible, Dollhouse, Eureka, and she just wowed us on this week's Supernatural in "The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo" (which is almost the best episode title ever). Is she on her way to being the female answer to geek guest star extraordinaire, Mark Sheppard? According to this delightful article on TV Line, Day couldn't turn down Supernatural because she loves it and she's a fan of our type of show. I hereby extend her an open invitation to write anything she wants for us at any time. Although I suspect she's a bit too busy to accept.

Benedict Cumberbatch is everywhere, too: Sherlock (which FINALLY arrives in the U.S. next Sunday), the next Star Trek movie, and the Hobbit, too. In his honor, here is a fun interview in the New York Times, and the classic internet wonderfulness that is "Otters who look like Benedict Cumberbatch".

Dexter casting news and a possible ninth season

Ray Stevenson from Rome just landed a recurring role in Dexter season seven. "Recurring role" usually means "bad guy", but hey, there have been recurring good guys on Dexter, too.

The Dexter powers that be have hinted that there might be a ninth season, but Jennifer Carpenter has indicated that she might be done after eight. It also sounds like Michael C. Hall is ready for another project, too. Gay funeral director... vigilante serial killer... with a range like that, what could possibly be next?

Personally, I think eight is enough. A lot of fans thought season six was weak, and I agree -- it was. Just think what they could do if they knew exactly when the end of the series was coming, so that they could go out with a bang. Personally, I've always wanted to see what would happen if Dexter got caught, which isn't something they could do unless there was an end in sight.

Community and Awake finales

Josie says:
The finales of Community and Awake have been swapped from their original schedule. Community is now slated for a one-hour finale on May 17th, which is during May Sweeps. Awake now has a spot on May 24th, which is not May Sweeps (even though it is in May). Incisive conclusion? Awake will be canceled, so NBC doesn't care about setting the ad rates for the show, and that's why they moved it. Alas.

Comment and Tweet of the Week

Comment of the Week definitely goes to Greg Quinnell's on Mark Greig's review of the Community episode "Virtual Systems Analysis". It does have to be read in context, and requires knowledge of the show. Aren't those the best kind of comments?

My favorite tweets are almost invariably by Nathan Fillion or writer Tim Carvell. This week, it's one of Tim's:
Subway ad for waterproof mascara promises "No 'Panda-Eyes'!" I dunno. When you call them "panda-eyes", it kind of makes them sound awesome.
Since we have a Panda and he's awesome, I have to agree with that.

That's it for this week. Opinions, raves, rants, questions?

8 comments:

  1. Yay Fringe!

    I almost never like the endings to anything (honourable exceptions - Sex and the City, Ashes to Ashes, Scrubs) but I'm still glad it's going to get a proper ending. And 13 more episodes is definitely good news!

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  2. Ray Stevenson was cool in Rome, so I may have to see him in Dexter. Also is it Avengers time? I believe it is. Yay.
    Anna

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  3. Is NBC tying to kill me? Three episodes of Community on May 17th. Think I'm going to have to lock myself in a hotel room that weekend and stock up on Red Bull.

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  4. What makes that finale date even MORE awesome is it's two days after the release of Diablo 3. Which I'll definitely be playing while watching, hehehehe.

    Also.... wow. Can't believe I got Comment of the week. Feel so honored! Thank you, to everyone who voted for me! Thank you to my family and friends, who supported me all through this, and knew I could do this if I just kept trying harder and harder. Thank you to everyone who comments here at Billie Doux for noticing my greatness. And, of course, thank you to myself, for being witty enough to come up with that.

    And now for my acceptance speech....

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  5. Sorry, I should have posted SPOILERS before that.

    Could some mod please cover it a bit?. Thanks, and sorry.

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  6. Anon, I deleted the comment. Please feel free to repost without spoilers. And I think you got your seasons confused. There have only been six seasons of Dexter so far. It's been renewed for two more.

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  7. An unashamed plug here for Felicia's Web series The Guild whch is about a very dysfunctional group of online gamers. It's hilarious.

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  8. Please, please no more Dexter after season 8. I'm already hesitant about it going beyond season 7, seeing how 6 turned out. A ninth season would be pure overkill.

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