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FOR ALL MANKIND renewed for sixth and final season

For All Mankind has been renewed for a sixth and final season on Apple TV+. The news broke just before the release of Season 5 on 27 March.

The show explores an alternate history of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It starts in 1969 with mankind first setting foot on the moon...but instead of Neil Armstrong, it's a Soviet cosmonaut. Furious at being beaten to the punch, President Nixon orders NASA to double down on beating the Soviets in building a permanent moonbase, orbital space stations and eventually the exploration of Mars. Each season is set in a different decade, showing significant technological and sociological change over the course of decades in this world where the Space Race was not won, but became supercharged.

The show has flown under the radar with the general audience, but has been a quiet hit for Apple TV+ and is, alongside The Newsroom, it's longest-running show since the streamer debuted in 2019.

Whilst For All Mankind is wrapping up, the wider franchise might have longer legs. Launching on 29 May, the same day For All Mankind airs its Season 5 finale, Star City explores the events of the first season or so of the show from the Soviet perspective.

Peter Jackson to produce yet another frankly unnecessary LORD OF THE RINGS film

Peter Jackson has confirmed he is producing a new, frankly unnecessary Lord of the Rings film, to accompany the other new, frankly unnecessary Lord of the Rings film he is already producing.

Jackson is already producing the borderline spurious Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, a new film directed by Andy Serkis, who also returns to star as Gollum. The film, set between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, will depict the various attempts by the wizard Gandalf and his ally Aragorn to locate Gollum and learn more about his mysterious ring. Despite having minimal source material available, the film will reunite multiple castmembers from the original movie trilogy, though will likely recast the role of Aragorn due to Viggo Mortensen looking twenty-six years older than when he made those films. This film is due for release on 17 December 2027.

Jackson has now confirmed that, having scraped the bottom of the barrel, he has punched right through it and is now halfway to Earth's core with a further Lord of the Rings-branded movie. The Lord of the Rings: The Shadow of the Past will apparently expand on the "missing chapters" from the original film, The Fellowship of the Ring, filling in the section between the Hobbits leaving the Shire and arriving in Bree. In the original novel, this section sees the Hobbits pass through Buckland, the part of the Shire east of the River Brandywine, where they regroup at Crickhollow and touch base with their friend Fatty Bolger (the infamous "fifth Hobbit," who stays behind in the Shire whilst the main crew go on their epic adventure). They then enter the Old Forest, running afoul of Old Man Willow and meeting the enigmatically jovial Tom Bombadil and his wife Goldberry, before being pursued by Barrow-wights whilst crossing nearby moorland. Rescued by Bombadil, they resume their journey to Bree.

The original writing team had expressed regret at having to exercise this material for time and tonal reasons, though co-writer Philippa Boyens noted on the DVD that it's wholly possible the Hobbits still had those adventures, they just happen off-screen in the movie.

Noted Middle-earth fan and shortly-to-be-unemployed talk show host Stephen Colbert will co-write the film with Boyens and Peter McGee, whilst Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will produce. A framing device will see Sam, Merry and Pippin (presumably a returning Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, though they are not 100% confirmed) reflect on the "missing episode" from some years after the War of the Ring. This will presumably allow their naturally-aged appearances and presumably CGI de-aged versions for the bulk of the action (where they presumably will need to be joined by Elijah Wood). The project does not yet have a director attached or a release date mooted, though it will need to be some time after The Hunt for Gollum's release in 2027.

Rumours that Warner Brothers are developing a full nine-hour trilogy based on a three-paragraph conversation between Frodo, Bilbo and Gloin at the Council of Elrond cannot be substantiated at this time. Yet.

Age of Mythology: Retold

The cyclops Gargarensis has vowed to shatter the gates to the Underworld and release the Titan Kronos back into the world. To this end he has assembled a vast army and set about this task in Greece. Arkantos, hero of Atlantis, sails to the Greek colonies to lend his aid in the Trojan War. Learning of Gargarensis and his plans, Arkantos forges a coalition with the Egyptians and Norse to stand against him.

Age of Mythology, a magic-and-legends spin-off from the venerable Age of Empires real-time strategy series, was released in 2002 and remastered and re-released in 2014. Following the pattern set by its forebear, Age of Empires II, the game has now been remastered and re-released yet again. We are now in the age of not just the remaster, but the remaster of the remaster.

Age of Mythology: Extended Edition was fine, maybe a bit minimalist as remasters go, with better water effects, tweaked textures and greater support for modern resolutions. But it was also bit underwhelming, with the feeling it could have been much more comprehensively updated. The team evidently agreed and after the barnstorming success of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition (itself a remaster of a remaster), they came back for another go-around.

Age of Mythology: Retold is now the definitive version of the game. Age of Mythology has always flown a bit under the radar, despite being an enjoyable and characterful real-time strategy game with four distinct factions (the Greeks, Egyptians, Norse and Atlanteans), a splendid interface, a reasonable difficulty curve and superb graphics, which take the painterly, 2D approach of Age of Mythology II and adapt it into 3D with subtlety. I always found Age of Mythology to be a more satisfying arrows 'n' spells strategy game than WarCraft III, whilst some of its updates to the Age of Empires formula are superb. The weakest thing to come from the game is arguably the Tale of the Dragon expansion from Extended Edition, which felt a bit undercooked.

The game itself is pretty standard as far as RTS titles go: you start with a base, in this case a town centre, from where you can train workers who construct buildings and work as resource-gatherers. There are four primary resources: wood, gold, food and faith. The first three are used to build mundane structures and units (a mix of archers, cavalry, infantry and siege weapons) whilst faith is used to train "myth units" (sphinxes, dragons, cyclopses, hydras, frost giants etc) and one-off "heroes" (like Odysseus or Achilles). Resource-gathering is a surprisingly flexible system, with multiple ways of getting resources. For example, food can be hunted (peasants kill chickens, bears or pheasants and use them for food), farmed or gained from the sea by sending out fishing boats, whilst gold can either be mined directly, gained through trade at a marketplace or setting up a trade network between your town centres using caravans.

As usual, you amass armies which you can take into battle. The composition of these armies is interesting, with a rock-paper-scissors mechanic complicated by the deployment of counter-units (pikemen who are marginally effective in infantry battles but devastating against cavalry), so assembling a well-balanced force is essential. Early in a game, units can be fragile, so making sure you get unit upgrades from an armoury to improve armour, attack and resilience to specific damage types, like bludgeoning or piercing is also important. As each game proceeds, you can upgrade to a different age, which unlocks new units and building types.

This is all standard, but Age of Mythology nails the details very well. This was one of the first RTS games that allowed you to automatically task newly-built units (so right click on a gold mine to make all the villagers built after this point automatically go over and start mining), resulting in a very smooth and intuitive playing experience.

In terms of gameplay, Age of Mythology is hugely enjoyable, but it does focus a lot on attack. Whilst some games give you impressive options for defence and turtling, like StarCraft and its bunkers, photon cannons and siege tanks, Age of Mythology's defensive structures tend to be less effective, with walls and towers coming down very easily to enemy action (disappointingly, as the game's wall-building system may be one of the best in any RTS game ever made, allowing you to built elaborate fortifications very easily). The game is at its best when you are constantly engaging the enemy, reinforcing as needed and keeping them on the back foot. Tactically, a fine balance is needed between known when to keep up an attack and when to fall back for reinforcement.

In terms of story, the game has a very silly but enjoyable narrative which mixes up the Norse, Egyptian, Greek and Atlantean legends and stories in a manner that's contrived but fun. The story can't hope to match WarCraft III's beautiful cut scenes and in-game plot twists, but it does know when to butt out and not interfere with gameplay (a lesson other RTS games could learn from, even now) through endless cut scenes and major reversals you can't do anything about. Age of Mythology remains a pretty fair game in that sense.

Retold eliminates many of the previous negatives about the game. AI is dramatically improved, eliminating some of the dumber enemy moves and improving the responsiveness of your units. Pathfinding is dramatically improved.The one-shot god powers have been replaced by cooldown abilities instead. The game leans a bit more into the differences between the factions, making them feel more distinctive. For a game that's almost a quarter of a century old, Age of Mythology feels quite fresh and modern in most respects even before the Retold improvements are accounted for.

Those improvements are significant. The biggest change is the lighting, which is now gorgeous, and the basic elimination of draw distance limitations, making in-game cutscenes (when you are most likely to be gazing across the battlefield) much more attractive. Improvements in textures and rendering make the units and buildings hold up extremely well even at 4K and zoomed-in, but the game remains very undemanding by modern standards, meaning potatoes can run it relatively well (things only start to chug if you set up skirmish matches with the unit cap increased to preposterous levels). There are also welcome improvements to the UI, which is now more intuitive, and the ability to automate resource gathering. You can now set ratios so every new villager you create is automatically assigned to a task (so set an equal ratio and new villagers will automatically be assigned to each resource in turn), though this can also be turned off. Gameplay and balance changes are minor but noticeable: walls feel a bit sturdier than in the base games, and units now automatically use their special abilities rather than requiring direct player intervention.

Content wise, Retold includes the original campaign, divided between the Greeks, Egyptians and Norse, and the Golden Gift mini-campaign for the Dwarves, plus The Titans expansion for the Atlanteans. This is a sizeable amount of content, with a playthrough of the singleplayer campaign content lasting a reasonable 35-40 hours. Two additional, paid-for expansions are also available. Pillars of the Gods is set in China and Yasuko's Tale is set in Japan. Both add an 8-hour-ish campaign and a new faction apiece, obviously the Chinese and Japanese. The Tale of the Dragon expansion is forgotten about here (probably for the best) with the new expansions being much better-written and voice-acted, with more compelling stories and gameplay, not to mention narrative ties to the original campaigns. More content is incoming, with an Aztec-themed expansion due this year, and the occasional addition of new gods, heroes and units for the existing factions.

Age of Mythology: Retold (*****) takes one of the RTS genre's underdogs and turns it into the game it was always meant to be. Twenty-four years after release, Age of Mythology finally realises its potential. The game is available now on PC, Xbox Series S / X and PlayStation 5.

Note: Part of this review was previously published in 2018.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

Slow Gods by Claire North

Mawukana na-Vdnaze is an unusual man. Born in the Shine, an autocratic multi-planetary government noted for its brutal repression of dissent, he escapes in the most astonishing manner possible, via an FTL jump that goes...weird. Given refuge on another world, he is drawn back into interstellar affairs when a twin star goes supernova, generating an explosion that will render dozens of worlds uninhabitable, including some in the Shine.

Catherine Webb has consistently been one of spec fic's most interesting voices since they launched their career almost a quarter of a century ago. The Matthew Swift sequence (four novels plus two spin-off books), under the Kate Griffin pen-name, was notable as an urban fantasy series with terrific prose, but it's been their long streak of stand-alone novels under the Claire North pen-name which has attracted a much wider audience. The million-selling, John W. Campbell Memorial Award-winning First Fifteen Lives of Harry August was one of the most striking genre novels of the 2010s (and it remains a mystery why it hasn't been adapted for the screen), and the World Fantasy Award-winning A Sudden Appearance of Hope was also very accomplished.

In the 2020s they've shifted gears away from supernatural-tinged time travel and identity-bending fiction into a more heartfelt embrace of genre: the Songs of Penelope trilogy has been a full-bored fantasy-historical sequence, an interrogation of Homer, and now Slow Gods is a full-on, take-no prisoners space opera, the kind of shift in genre and approach that could give other authors whiplash.

Slow Gods starts slow, perhaps fittingly, and takes its time to spool up. Early chapters establish the Shine and the imminent threat of the twin supernova, a threat which is dismissed by some since its consequences will take decades or even centuries to become apparent, and all the people who'd have to make the hard and unpopular decisions to deal with it will be long dead by then, so why bother? Other, less psychotic civilisations swing into action much more dynamically, and how the different species and polities confront this massive existential threat is most interesting.

This is contrasted against Maw himself, whose travel through jump space has rendered him...other. Not quite human any more, capable of unusual acts, possibly dangerous, but also essential for certain tasks. FTL travel in this setting is dangerous, with most starship pilots going insane after just a few jumps, but Maw's condition has given them a very different reaction, potentially highly useful. In the wrong hands this could turn into another superhero story, with Maw's amazing skills spelled out in neon five-mile-tall letters, but Webb uses their formidable experience in crafting damaged, special characters to give Maw a lot more subtlety than that. Maw himself does not know what he's capable of and is not always that interested in finding out. At one point he ponders some experiments to determine the limits of his abilities and concludes he just can't be bothered to try. Maw's characterisation is of someone driven by instincts and goals but whom also finds the idea of fame abhorrent. Maw is simultaneously the most special and ordinary person in the galaxy, which is an interesting take.

The characters around Maw, from quans (quantum intelligences) to members of a telepathic hive-race to more or less baseline humans, are fascinatingly-drawn, and come and go through the story as Maw's travels through space separate them from friends and allies (but also enemies) for decades at a time. The novel is somewhat episodic, with several distinct storylines that sequentially follow before combining into a satisfying narrative whole, bringing the story back to where it began.

The novel is highly accomplished but the opening chapters feel a little hesitant, as if the author was not entirely committed, but this feeling vanishes pretty quickly and instead we get a wide-ranging, human story about identity, loss and hope, driven by Webb's firm grasp of prose and pacing. It's a quiet, sometimes melancholic novel, with occasional bursts of action and moments of vast, profound tragedy.

Slow Gods (****½) is a quietly powerful science fiction novel about the death of worlds that starts slow and acquires an unstoppable, powerful momentum as it goes. It's a highly successful shift in tone and genre for one of our most consistently talented, if perhaps underrated, authors. The book is available worldwide now.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

Person of Interest: Season 1

A decade ago, a genius computer programmer named Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) created the Machine, a powerful AI capable of detecting crimes before they happen. The US government wanted to use the Machine solely to forecast large-scale threats, like terrorism, whilst Finch wanted to use it to help solve everyday crimes as well. Finch still has a line to the Machine, which feeds him the social security numbers of people who are about to be the victims - or sometimes the perpetrators - of crime. With an old injury inhibiting his ability to work in the field, Finch recruits ex-CIA operative John Reese (Jim Caviezel) to assist. Reese, living off the grid and suffering trauma after the death of his girlfriend while he was overseas, reluctantly agrees and finds the work is giving him a sense of purpose again. But their laudable actions soon attract the wrong kind of attention from the police...and Reese's old bosses.

Back in 2011, Jonathan Nolan, brother of director Chris and co-writer on many of his movies, went solo to work on a new procedural TV series, with J.J. Abrams producing. Person of Interest eventually ran to 103 episodes airing over five seasons, attracting significant critical acclaim and wider popularity in the process. It also gave Nolan the springboard to work on Westworld for HBO and now Fallout for Amazon.

This first season gradually eases the viewer into the world and premise. In fact, it might be a bit too gradual. The show spend a lot of its time on its mystery of the week format. The Machine spits out a social security number, Finch does some data-searching and Reese then saves/neutralises the person accordingly. Finch's seemingly infinite hacking skills and Reese's one-man army combat skills overcome almost every obstacle with ease. Complicating matters are Reese being hunted by both the police (represented by Taraji P. Henson's Detective Carter) and various former CIA colleagues.

The show does start to mix things up by bringing in serialised elements, with the hunt for the mysterious criminal mastermind "Elias" and the hacker "Root" forming key story arcs in the latter part of the season, along with the well-meaning Carter getting closer to Reese and Finch meaning they have to consider the risks vs reward of bringing her onto the team. This also leads to the development of the main cast. Just having Reese and Finch with Carter pottering around in a B-plot in the background risks getting a little claustrophobic, hence bringing in recurring characters like Kevin Chapman's Detective Fusco (a dirty cop Reese blackmails into helping him, but later decides to go straight) and Paige Turco's Zoe, a con-artist and political operator, is a good idea. Brett Cullen also recurs as Nathan Ingram, Finch's partner in the creation of the Machine and the public face of its design (hence how Finch is able to operate undercover). Ingram only appears in flashback, in an occasionally surfacing storyline about how the Machine was created.

These ongoing storyline elements make the show more interesting, but are treated with a light touch. From start to finish, the season is primarily concerned with its person-of-interest-of-the-week format and everything else is subservient to that. This means the serialised storylines are usually held off at arm's length which can be refreshing - arguably too many other shows ditch their interesting format too quickly to embrace serialisation, which can devolve into soap opera if the writers are not careful - but also frustrating. Whenever Person of Interest's main story arc starts building any momentum, the show kills it stone dead for another 3-4 episodes of self-contained adventures.

It's fortunate that the self-contained stories are usually pretty good. Reese's one-man army/Batman-without-the-mask spiel and Finch's savant-like IT skills are toned down a bit and complicated by increasingly effective and smarter opponents as the season goes on, to keep things fresh throughout. The serialisation does return with a vengeance in the last few episodes, leading to a hell of an effective cliffhanger that paves the way for the wider-scaled and scoped second season.

The performances of the leads are effective, with Michael Emerson (Lost) especially sympathetic and engaging as the stiff-upper-lipped Finch, whom we learn has made some questionable decisions and is now trying to atone for them. Kevin Chapman makes Fusco likeable and loathsome by turns, and Taraji P. Henson is engaging as Carter, at least after some initial abrasiveness in the character is toned down a bit. More of a mixed bag is Jim Caviezel as Reese. Caviezel seems to have trouble settling on a tone for the character, which to be fair is reflected in the writing. It's very easy to take a character who's supposed to be reserved, analytical and stoic and make them just dramatically inert instead, and the writers and Caviezel make that mistake a few too many times. Whenever Caviezel is stretched with material delving into his character's past or requiring more emotion, he can be quite good, but there's a few too many episodes where he comes across as checked out. Still, he's never terrible.

The show is often mentioned in the same breath as another Abrams project from the same time, Fringe. Both shows are contemporary dramas with science fictional themes laced into them (Fringe much more obviously so, and more upfront), and both shows start off as almost rote procedurals until the creators feel confident to slam down the accelerator on the main story arc, where the shows promptly improve and become more compelling. Both shows also last for five (well, four-and-a-half) seasons. Interestingly, whilst Fringe only ever did okay at best and was on life support for at least its last two seasons, Person of Interest was a much bigger crossover hit and enjoyed a larger viewership, which tailed off significantly towards the end. Both shows are also have a reputation for being somewhat underrated, and have pretty well-regarded endings. The similarities end there, as their stories and aesthetics are quite different, and I do have to say that Fringe after its first season felt like its main story arc had engaged more decisively and interestingly than Person of Interest's.

Still, Person of Interest's first season (***½) starts okay and quickly becomes quite strong, even if Caviezel's performance and the writing can be a little uneven throughout. Both the serialised plots and the stories-of-the-week can be quite good, and the other castmembers are excellent. The tail end of the season hints at a much bigger, more epic story unfolding behind the scenes as well, providing a good impetus to carry on. The show is available on physical media and streaming worldwide.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

RIP Nicholas Brendon

News has sadly broken of the passing of Nicholas Brendon, who was best-known for playing the role of Xander Harris on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Brendon was born in Los Angeles in 1971 and was an identical twin. As well as his slightly older twin brother Kelly Donovan, he had two younger brothers. He developed a stutter as a child, which badly impacted his self-confidence, and pursued acting as a way of managing the condition, abandoning plans to become a professional baseball player. His initial attempts to break into acting ended in failure, so he considered retraining in medicine.

A second attempt at acting saw Brendon audition for the pilot for Buffy the Vampire Slayer in late 1995. Cast as Xander Harris, the high school nerd who develops a crush on newly-arrived Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) only to discover she is the Slayer, the prophesised destroyer of vampire-kind, Brendon retained the role when it went to series, entering production in 1996 and finally airing (as a mid-season replacement) in 1997.

Nicholas Brendon appeared in all seven seasons of Buffy, until the show ceased airing in 2003. His character was notable for not possessing any special powers or skills, instead presenting the "ordinary guy" perspective on events. He was also somewhat the stand-in for creator Joss Whedon, sharing Whedon's interest in comic books and movies. Xander's nerdish persona was somewhat at odds with Brendon's tall good looks, so the show pivoted with Xander dating the popular Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) in the second and third seasons before hooking up with immortal ex-demon Anya (Emma Caulfield) in Season 4. Xander also became an effective fighter against the forces of evil. Several episodes focused on his character development, arguably the most notable being in Season 3's The Zeppo when he saves the day whilst his super-powered friends, busy with a world-ending threat, are otherwise occupied. In later seasons he gets an ordinary job (in construction) and develops impressive skills in carpentry and design. One episode also saw Xander split into two identical people, which allowed Nicholas and his twin brother Kelly to work together (some fans, unaware that Brendon was a twin, thought the show had demonstrated amazing vfx skill instead). Xander's crowning moment of glory comes in the Season 6 finale when he saves Sunnydale and possibly the world from Willow (Alyson Hannigan) after she is consumed by darkness. The show ends with Xander recovering from Anya's death and his loss of an eye in the final battles against the forces of evil.

Brendon went on to play the recurring role of Kevin Lynch on Criminal Minds, appearing from the third through tenth seasons from 2007 to 2015 in 21 episodes. He also played the main role of Seth Richman in Kitchen Confidential in 2005-06, and the recurring role of Lee McHenry in four episodes of Private Practice in 2010-11. He chalked up multiple film roles, the most notable being in comedy-horror film Psycho Beach Party (2000) alongside Amy Adams and Lauren Ambrose.

Nicholas Brendon also toured on the Buffy convention circuit, but struggled with depression and alcoholism, attending rehab several times. He married and divorced twice, and was arrested several times. He went on Dr. Phil twice to discuss his issues. He also had other health issues, requiring spinal surgery in 2021 and suffering a heart attack in 2022.

There's no denying that Nicholas Brendon had a troubled life, and had a lot of problems after his brush with fame on Buffy in trying to further his career. However, his family reported that new antidepressant medication seemed to be working in the last few years of his life, he had avoided some of the problems that earlier afflicted him and he had found a new career as an artist. It appears he may have found some peace in his last few years.

FIREFLY animated TV series in development

An animated TV series based on cult SF classic Firefly is in "advanced development," according to star Nathan Fillion. Most of the cast is expected to reprise their roles. Joss Whedon is not involved in the project but has given it his blessing.

The news was announced at a Firefly panel at WonderCon today. The animated series will be set between the events of Firefly (which aired one 14-episode season in 2002) and its movie sequel, Serenity (2005). Fillion (Mal), Alan Tudyk (Wash), Gina Torres (Zoe), Jewel Staite (Kaylee), Morena Baccarin (Inara), Sean Maher (Simon), Summer Glau (River) and Adam Baldwin (Jayne) will all reprise their roles from the TV series. It is unclear if a new actor will replace Ron Glass, who passed away in 2016, as Shepherd Book. Book departed the Serenity ship between the events of the series and movie, so he may not feature in the new project. The timeline was chosen to allow actors who characters died during the events of the movie to return.

The project is being developed by Fillion's company Collision33 with 20th Television Animation. Writer-producer team Marc Guggenheim (Legends of Tomorrow, Arrow) and Tara Butters (Agent Carter) will serve as showrunners, and have completed a first script. Animation studio ShadowMachine is producing concept art. Whedon, who created Firefly and wrote and directed multiple episodes (including the movie) but has since fallen from grace in Hollywood, will not have an involvement but Fillion has got his blessing to move forwards.

During an video addendum to the announcement, it appears that the project has the working title Firefly: Still Flyin' (or at least that's the logo), with a pilot episode entitled Athenia.

The news comes only a day after Sarah Michelle Gellar confirmed another attempted revival of a Joss Whedon property, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale, was dropped after a pilot was shot for Hulu. That project may be remounted in a different format.

Hulu passes on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER sequel series after shooting a pilot

Actress-producer Sarah Michelle Gellar has confirmed via Instagram that Hulu has passed on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer legacy sequel series, New Sunnydale. The proposed series filmed a pilot last year with Gellar reprising her role as Buffy Summers and directed by Chloe Zhao.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired 144 episodes across 7 seasons from 1997 to 2003 and had a successful spin-off show, Angel. The show also spawned numerous spin-off novels and comic books. Gellar had always resisted attempts to revisit the show, but changed her mind after rewatching the show with her daughters during the COVID lockdown.

New Sunnydale was going to see the town of Sunnydale, destroyed in the original series finale, rebuilt in proximity to the Hellmouth, the old gateway of evil that caused most of the trouble in the original show. A new Slayer would be called in the form of Ryan Kiera Armstrong (Star Wars: Skeleton Crew), with Buffy on hand as well. It was unclear if Buffy was going to act as a mentor to the younger Slayer or what the precise format would be, but Armstrong's character would still be in school and would have a network of friends, allies and frenemies similar to the original show.

Only Gellar was contracted to reprise her role from the original show, but if it had gone to series, there were plans to bring back other characters as well.

Possibly in the future a different pitch might have better luck at getting off the ground.

Two missing DOCTOR WHO episodes recovered

As had been hoped for a while, the BBC has announced the safe return of two previously missing episodes of Doctor Who to their archive. "The Nightmare Begins" and "Devil's Planet" are the first and third episodes of the epic Daleks' Master Plan arc, both written by Dalek creator Terry Nation and originally airing in 1965. The episodes had been missing since the BBC junked a large number of episodes to make space in their archives.

The two episodes were recovered by the Film is Fabulous charity. The episodes had been in the hands of a private collector for some years, who had recently passed away. The Doctor Who episodes are part of a larger haul of vintage film. Film is Fabulous is assessing the rest of the collection to see if there are any more rare gems.

The find is quite significant. It's the first time any missing Doctor Who episodes have been found since nine episodes were located in 2013. The gap without any missing episodes being recovered was the longest since the hunt began in 1978, leading some to fear that no more episodes would be ever be found.

The episodes are quite significant. The Daleks' Master Plan is - arguably - Doctor Who's longest single story (The Trial of a Time Lord from 1985 is two episodes longer but is also sometimes counted as four stories combined into one) and one of its most epic, pitching the First Doctor (William Hartnell) and his companions Steven Taylor (Peter Purves) and Katarina (Adrienne Hill) against the Daleks in the year 4000. Selling the story overseas was problematic due to its length, meaning only a few copies were made and none distributed abroad, making the recovery of further episodes doubtful. However, the new discovery means that five episodes from the serial now exist in the archive, including the first three in a row. The find means that fans can also see more of Katarina, previously the companion with the least-surviving number of episodes in the archive. The find is also historic because it features, in "The Nightmare Begins," the very first appearance in Who of fan-favourite actor Nicholas Courtney. Courtney is better known for playing Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, the franchise's most enduring recurring character, but in this story he plays space agent Brett Vyon.

Peter Purves, now 87, was treated to a special screening of the two episodes out of the blue and was reportedly flabbergasted by their return.

The episodes will be made available on the BBC iPlayer at Easter, and will be included when Season 3 eventually hits Blu-Ray (although that's a way off at the moment).

The Film is Fabulous initiative is pursuing several further leads which hopefully will turn up further missing episodes. This discovery drops the number of missing Doctor Who episodes to 95, all from the first six seasons of the show.

UPDATE: It's now been suggested that these two recovered episodes were not part of any previously known initiative, and are not the episodes Film is Fabulous have been trying to recover since last October. That initiative remains ongoing. This makes it more likely that at least one more missing episode could be recovered in the near future.