Entertainment, TV, Television - Marine Corps Times

Sci-fi fans find quirky, quality TV options

Fans of science-fiction and fantasy TV could be in good shape in the upcoming season.

The top of their list includes:

• A more-definite date for the final 10 “Battlestar Galactica” episodes. The show returns in January, Dave Howe, head of the Sci Fi Channel, said recently.

• More “Heroes” episodes than usual on NBC. There will be 25 this season, said Masi Oka (who plays Hiro Nakamura), starting with a 13-episode story, “Villains.”

Plenty of other fantasy shows will be on TV or cable, but there will be one step missing: This is one of the few years in which Sci Fi won’t have a major miniseries in December.

“Those have to be big events when they happen,” Howe said.

Last December’s project, “Tin Man,” has piled up nine Emmy nominations, including best miniseries. As future possibilities, Sci Fi is preparing “Mirabilis” (David James Elliott in a fantasy world that includes knights and dragons) and an untitled mini from “X-Men” director Bryan Singer.

The Sci Fi Channel doesn’t come close to a monopoly on the genre. In early September — before the season has officially started — buffs will be watching “Fringe” and “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” on Fox and “True Blood” on HBO. The fall brings NBC’s “Heroes,” “Chuck” and “Knight Rider” and ABC’s time-travel cop show, “Life on Mars”; midseason has ABC’s “Lost,” with a run of about 17 episodes.

Still, it’s Sci Fi that provides the quantity of new shows. Early debuts range from the season-opener of the whimsical “Eureka” (July 29) to the debut of “Anaconda 3” (July 26), which keeps finding messy ways for a 60-foot snake to devour people.

Shows coming up on Sci Fi include:

• “Sanctuary,” in October (the channel doesn’t give specific dates). It uses new special-effects techniques, as a team investigates strange doings around the world. Fresh from 11 years in two “Stargate” series, Amanda Tapping stars as a 157-year-old woman who seems quite youthful. “I bathe in Botox, which is expensive but good,” Tapping joked.

• Two movies — “Warehouse 13” and “Revolution” — that double as pilots for series. “Revolution” stars Billy Campbell and Peter Fonda; Mark Stern, head of programming for Sci Fi, says it’s “very much akin to ‘The Patriot’ in space, about a U.S. colony, fighting for freedom.”

• One movie, “Caprica,” that could jump straight to series. Set 51 years before the Cylon takeover on “Battlestar Galactica,” it stars Esai Morales as the father of William Adama, who becomes the “Battlestar” commander. Remi Auchubon, a key writer-producer for both shows, calls the new one “a series about our lack of control of technology.”

• More original movies than ever. The quirky Saturday spot will again have 24 flicks this season; in 2009, Howe said, there will be 12 new ones on Sundays.

• A reality overload. Two shows, “Cash or Capture” and “Estate of Panic,” debut in November; other possibilities are in the works, including a crime-solving show led by Allison DuBois, the real-life person portrayed in NBC’s “Medium.”