After a fast paced (and successful) first season, BATES MOTEL has wrapped and we talk to series regular Nestor Carbonell about his role now and in the upcoming 2nd run of episodes, plus we examine the unique alien life on SyFy‘s DEFIANCE with Jamie Murray and Tony Curran.

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In the wake of Star Wars’ massive and surprisingly success, studios went looking for the next Star Wars. We’ve seen this cycle again and again, which has led to some good things (the revival of Star Trek in 1979) and some bad (the original Battlestar Galactica). In the wake of Stephanie Meyer’s perplexingly popular Twilight, publishers and film studios alike have been demanding the next Twilight. Hungry authors have been more than happy to fill the order with way too many urban fantasies reading like made-to-order hash. What everyone loses sight of is that Star Wars and Twilight each staked out territory that had not been overly mined in the period before their arrival. So, what makes any of the imitators succeed is how well executed it is and how much the formula is given fresh ingredients to keep it from feeling like warmed up leftovers.

In 2009, authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl admittedly tried to cash in on the craze and came up with Beautiful Creatures, which turned the formula on its head and eschewed vampires and werewolves for witches with a dash of legacy tossed in. The book also worked because they brought a level of craft to the writing with some terrific first-person narration and characterization that brought the world to life. It was popular enough to earn sequels comprising the four volume Caster Chronicles.

Warner Bros., eager to find a franchise of its own to rival Twilight and replace the failed Golden Compass, snapped this up and released the filmed adaptation in February. It met with mediocre reviews and ho hum box office, dooming prospects for sequels. The movie is out tomorrow from Warner Home Video in their combo pack (Blu-ray, DVD, Ultraviolet).

The basic story remains the same and the film itself is not bad, but fails to properly capture the tone of the book. Considering this was written and directed by Richard LaGravenese this is surprising given how engaging his Fisher King script was and his previous experience with fantasy, writing the screenplay for The Voyage of the Dawn Traeder.

Wisely, he cast the film with relative unknowns in the lead and surrounded them with veteran presences who were not such Big Names that they overwhelmed the film’s focal point. Alden Ehrenrich and Alice Englert look and act like teens, characters trapped in their surroundings, one trying to get out, the other to fit in. Gatlin, South Carolina is like many other small towns so the newcomer, Alice’s Lena, is immediately the subject of gossip and made to feel unwelcome. All Alden’s Ethan wants is to graduate and say goodbye to his hometown. However, he’s also been plagued with nightmares featuring a girl, who now looks remarkably like Lena.

Ethan wants to get to know the newcomer, trying to figure out their obvious connection but is thwarted by her father Macon Ravenwood (Jeremy Irons), Mavis (Emma Thompson) and cousin Ridley (Emmy Rossum). The creepy family turns out to be one of Casters (as in spellcasters or witches and warlocks) each trying to influence Lena who is reaching the point where she decides if she wants to be a Good Witch or a Bad Witch.

That the Duchannes clan uses magic sets up some interesting themes about magic and religion, faith and love, but it’s all on the surface. The classmates think the family comes from the local Hellmouth and everyone takes sides, with no one straddling a middle ground, robbing the film of a chance to, ahem, stake out some fresh storytelling territory.

The novel explores the relationships far better than the film, which is a shame given the rich cast, who largely go wasted. Thompson’s Sarafine (where do they find these odd names?) arrives some 45 minutes into the story and does little while Rossum is deliciously sly and sexy but has nowhere near enough screen time. Then there’s poor Viola Davis who is bookkeeper to Ethan’s family and a secret caster librarian. Such potential. Such a waste.

The video transfer is serviceable although unspectacular and the sound is perfectly fine so this makes for a satisfying home viewing experience. For something intended as the beginning of a new franchise, one would have hoped for more interesting assortment of bonus features but much as the book was made to order, so are these featurettes.

“Book to Screen” (3:58) briefly covers the adaptation process and I wanted to hear more from LaGravenese about the choices he made; “The Casters” (3:22) is another too brief chat with the lead teens and their thoughts on the characters; “Between Two Worlds” (4:17) uses the rest of the cast in similar conversation; “Alternate Worlds” (5:17) gives us a look at the special effects; “Designing the Costumes” (3:51); and, four deleted scenes (8:10), none of which are missed. You also get the theatrical trailers which imply the film is broader than it actually turns out to be.

Crossing one’s own timeline is a cardinal sin for a time traveler.  Walking over one’s grave even worse.  So when The Doctor is forced to do that…

THE NAME OF THE DOCTOR
by Steven Moffat
Directed by Saul Metzstein

Re-appearing after its defeat a year previous, The Great Intelligence forces The Doctor to the location of his grave, wherein is hidden the physical manifestation of his timeline, a map of his life, which in the hands of the wrong people could be used to re-write his life.  The Intelligence chooses to do so, at the cost of its own existence.  The only way to save The Doctor, and all the good works he did, is with another sacrifice.

Emotionally, the episode worked exceedingly well. We got a solid River Song story, one where we finally see The Doctor admit his feeling for her.  But narratively, we’re very close to seeing the same story three years in a row.  An attack on The Doctor results in all of time and space being thrown out of whack, and only through a well-placed sacrifice can everything be undone. We saw it even before the Moffat years in Turn Left, where Donna Noble is manipulated so as to have never met The Doctor, resulting in his death fighting the Racnoss queen, and all of the events afterwards changing.  The big twist here is it’s The Doctor who makes the final save of his companion, and not them saving him.

Having The Crimson Horror so closely preceding this episode somewhat diluted the fun of seeing The Paternoster Gang back – it might have been better to be a week ot two back, spread them out just a tad more. As much as people are clamoring for a spinoff series, the characters would need more fleshing out to stand up weekly viewing.

It all got a little needs-more-explainy at the end, but as is traditional, the emotional impact trumps any questions about how things could have happened as they did. And just in case they didn’t, that last scene is enough to forgive all sins, real or imagined.

GUEST STAR REPORT John Hurt (The Doctor (?)) has a staggering list of work in sci-fi and fantasy.  Perhaps best known for being the incubator for the eponymous creature in Alien, (not to mention a brilliant parody of that moment in Spaceballs), he was also in 1984, V for Vendetta, the Harry Potter films, really too many things to list.

THE MONSTER FILES – The Great Intelligence returns this episode, taking the visage of Dr. Simeon, last seen in The Snowmen. Considering the Intelligence seems to have been destroyed, the likelihood that they’re using the other media’s claim that it is indeed the Old One Yog-Sothoth (from the H.P. Lovecraft stories) is exceedingly slim.

The Whispermen didn’t get a whole lot of chance to do much save for showing off an ability to phase their hands into people’s chests and stop their hearts, and speak in verse.  Like The Shakri from The Power of Three, they certainly are interesting enough to warrant a future return, but it’d likely require a bit more explanation.  It’s unclear if they’re created by the Intelligence as temporary forms for its energy, or something else.  They bear a great resemblance to The Trickster from The Sarah Jane Adventures, leading many fans to believe that’s who was coming back.

BACKGROUND BITS AND BOBS – Trivia and production details

I CAN NEVER GET IT IN THE RIGHT ORDER – Once again we’re seeing River Song out of sync with past appearances.  She’s calling herself Professor again, which means we’re seeing her from near the events of Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead.  Indeed, since she has knowledge of her own death, she pretty much needs to be coming from AFTER that adventure, from when she was saved in CAL, the database in The Library.  The whole point of the episode is about how you can’t cross your own timeline – she wasn’t aware The Library was where she was going to die when she got there, so somehow she was able to join them in their sleep-meeting from within CAL.

Which is why I can’t grasp why people seem to think this will be the last time we’ll not be seeing her again.  What we saw was The Doctor coming to grips with the fact that River has at some point died.  The image that faded was the mental link image Clara was connected to – River simply closed the link.  We know for a fact that there are two adventures that have not yet occurred for The Doctor – he has not yet told her his name, and he has not giver her that adapted sonic screwdriver she had in that first/last story.  She will be back, and that’s that.  What we ARE seeing is their timelines starting to fill in.  In the two hundred or so years The Doctor was away before The Impossible Astronaut (remember, he goes from nine to eleven hundred years old) a lot of the stories in their diaries match up (Jim the Fish!), but not ALL. Plenty more to come.

“On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh” – Dorium first names the place and the prediction at the end of The Wedding of River Song. “Silence will fall when The Question is asked”, and indeed that’s what happened – When Simeon asked for The Doctor’s name, it gave him the opportunity to undo all of his deeds, including keeping Davros from destroying the universe. So indeed, it’s possible The Silence was fighting the wrong enemy, and they should have been trying to stop The Great Intelligence and The Whispermen.

“I was born to save The Doctor” – It’s funny that one of the rumors about the upcoming 50th anniversary story was they’d be inserting Matt Smith into past Doctor footage – it turns out it was done here.  In addition to using Hartnell footage to present the first moment of The Doctor’s adventures, we see her appear in footage from The Invasion of Time, Arc of Infinity, and Dragonfire. Most impressively is we see her standing behind Ten and Donna as they survey The Library in River Song’s first adventure.  We see Troughton and Pertwee from footage in The Five Doctors, and stand-in versions of the remaining Doctors.

“But not in the name of The Doctor” – As with the first episode of the semi-series, the title did not mean what it seemed it would.  This new Doctor appears to have done things that the rest of his incarnations, the rest of himself, can’t bear to deal with.  It’s fair to guess this includes causing the end of the Time War, but that’s not yet guaranteed.

BIG BAD REPORT / CLEVER THEORY DEPARTMENT – Pretty much we’re just looking backwards now.  We can see what the common threads were during Clara’s appearances, and for the second half of the season.

“I don’t know where I am” Oswin says it in Asylum of the Daleks, Clara says it in Bells of St. John, and says it again here.

“They’re my echoes” – We heard references to ghosts and echoes throughout the series as well.  The mysterious creatures in Hide (not to mention Clara’s statement that “we must all be ghosts to you”), the memories and experiences in Rings of Akhaten, the Ice Warrior out of time in Cold War, all creatures out of their proper place in time.

NEXT TIME ON DOCTOR WHO – Well, we know a little bit.  After that setup, there’s going to be a GREAT deal of rumormongering and Clever Theorizing over the next half year.  But even what we know is pretty damn cool.

• David Tennant and Billie Piper are returning for the 50th anniversary episode, and so far, none of the other original Doctors are.  We don’t know from what point of Ten’s timeline we’ll bee seeing him.  Since it appears he and Rose are still traveling together, it’s likely from before Doomsday.
• Jemma Redgrave will return as Kate Stewart, new head of UNIT.
• The Zygons will return to the series, and appearances by Cybermen and Daleks are also rumored.

Other than that?  Who the hell knows?