1st Pics of Tyler Hoechlin as Superman on the Set of Supergirl

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Edited by Robert Beach

With the summer almost done, the time has come for the major networks and studios to start ramping up for their big fall premieres.  For me as a geek blogger, that means we’ll be seeing a lot of news and reveals about superhero TV, which itself just means revelations are coming from the CW and a handful of flailing competitors who aren’t nearly as good. However, even though CW has managed to expand its dominance in superhero TV to dizzying levels they do still face a major challenge this coming fall, and her name is Supergirl.

After a respectable but not mind blowing season 1 on CBS, Supergirl has migrated to the CW where the demands for high ratings are reduced but so is the budget.  Supergirl already crossed over with CW’s The Flash in season 1 and the same folks who invented the CWniverse produce her show, but her high profile nature and difficulty with ratings make her a serious challenge for the powers that be at CW.  

The show has decided to show Superman, presumably cutting through the abyss of copyright regulation about who can show Superman on TV.  Tyler Hoechlin is stepping into the role of the man of steel and this weekend we got our first good look at him.

 

Questions About The New Star Trek Show

In case you hadn’t heard, CBS has finally pulled the trigger on a new Star Trek TV show with a premiere date slotted for 2017.  It’s a pretty major deal as this will be the first Star Trek show on the air in over 10 years since the end of Star Trek: Enterprise in 2005.  This also means the show will have to contend with the very odd place Star Trek has come to hold in the pop cultural pantheon after nearly a decade of disappointments like Enterprise and Nemesis before J.J. Abrams films slouched into a position of mild popularity.  

Personally I’m pretty excited, I’m a pretty huge Star Trek fan so the prospect of being able to watch new Star Trek in my life time is incredibly exciting and after CBS’ recent excellent handling of Supergirl my faith in that network has gone way, way up.  What’s more, now is the time for a new Star Trek show.  Star Trek was one of the first and most influential blendings of speculative fiction and space opera that embodied an incredibly pro-tech futurism and an infectious optimism that has been in far too short supply lately.  However, the announcement, which was basically just “we’re making a new Trek show,” has left everyone with a lot of questions that I’m going to go over here.

First Image of Supergirl's Red Tornado

Edited by Robert Beach 

As some of you hopefully gleaned from the title of this article, there’s a Supergirl TV show currently in the works from the people at CBS. I’m not exactly sure why the show is being developed by CBS instead of CW, but it’s best not to get too caught up in these things and just accept DC comics TV rights are spread across all of TV for no real reason. 

What I do know is that the show will be adapting other DC heroes beyond just Supergirl as part of its supporting cast. The only hero yet confirmed is Red Tornado, played by Iddo Goldberg of Salem fame, and today we got our first look at him. Goldberg will also be playing super scientist and super villain T.O. Morrow, the man who invented Red Tornado in the comics, though the hows and whys of that particular casting have yet to be revealed.

Static Thoughts - Logan's Run 1977

So Logan’s Run was briefly in the news over the weekend when a forgotten planned reboot of the film got new life with the announcement of an actual director attached to the project.  For the most part it isn’t that surprising the Logan’s Run reboot has languished in movie limbo for as long as it has.  The ‘80s work as farm for reboots and remakes because of the unmitigated amount of creativity and cash in the blockbuster scene and the corporate dominated consciousness of animation at the time.  Conversely viable ‘90s reboot properties may be more limited but they’re also more lucrative due to the growing trend of ‘90s nostalgia.

 The ‘70s is much more of a fallow period for rebootable material.  A lot of the stand out pieces of ‘70s cultural were incredibly driven by the auteurship of their maker like The Godfather, Taxi Driver, or The French Connection.  Alternatively projects like Jaws, The Exorcist, or Dirty Harry have become so engrained as classics of their genre a remake would come off as tired and uninspired like 2013’s ill-advised Carrie rehash.  There are some exceptions to this like the upcoming Creed film that looks to reboot/continue the Rocky story and I think Logan’s Run could be such an exception, not because of the film though, but because of the TV show.