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Work on the second Russell T. Davies era of DOCTOR WHO begins

It sounds like production (or at least pre-production) has already begun on the next era of Doctor Who. Russell T. Davies is returning to helm the show for a second stint, after his initial run in 2005-10.

The news was unearthed on Twitter, where the updated CVs of Vicki Delow and Phil Collinson were spotted by eagle-eyed fans, both listing the new series as now officially in production. Collinson's job is significant as he was previously an important producer on the first three-and-a-half seasons under Davies' tenure in 2005-08. Delow is a newcomer to the franchise, though.

Davies has already written several episodes for Series 14 - which will be the 40th season overall of the series and the 50th of the franchise - including the opening episode, which will serve as the show's 60th anniversary special. It is expected to air in the week of 23 November 2023, with the rest of the season to follow.

There are still two episodes from Series 13 to air, an Easter special called Legend of the Sea Devils and a special to air in October to celebrate the BBC's Centenary anniversary. That episode will write out the current cast and see the regeneration of Thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker. The actor who will play the Fourteenth Doctor has apparently not been confirmed yet, but is expected to be announced in the coming weeks, since it will be hard to keep the identity secret once actual filming begins (expected in the Spring).

Series 14 will also be the first produced as a co-production between the BBC and an external production company, Bad Wolf Productions. Bad Wolf is named after a story arc in Russell T. Davies's first season of the show back in 2005 and is headed by former BBC Head of Drama Jane Tranter, who commissioned Doctor Who's return, and former Doctor Who producer Julie Gardner.

LORD OF THE RINGS prequel TV series finally gets a name: THE RINGS OF POWER

Amazon Prime's extremely expensive Lord of the Rings prequel TV series has a title. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will launch later this year and will cover events in the Second Age of Middle-earth's history, more than 3,000 years before the events of the novels and existing films.

The title is a little unwieldy - the popular fan alternate choices of The Second Age or The Last Alliance are catchier - and somewhat redundant, but at least it's a relief to be able to give the thing a proper name at last.

The Rings of Power is set in the latter part of the Second Age, when the mighty island empire of Numenor became the most powerful nation in the world and even the Dark Lord Sauron, wielding the power of the One Ring, was unable to match it. It sounds like the show may feature significant flashbacks to earlier in the Age, when the elven-smith Celebrimbor was tricked by Sauron into forging the Rings of Power, by which means Sauron gained influence over the races of men and dwarves before forging the One Ring himself.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will launch worldwide on Amazon on 2 September 2022.

Paramount renews STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, STRANGE NEW WORLDS and LOWER DECKS

Paramount have renewed the remaining two of their three live-action Star Trek shows. Discovery will be returning for a fifth season, whilst Strange New Worlds has had a second season confirmed before its first season even debuts. Animated show Lower Decks will also be returning for a fourth season. Picard was renewed for a third season back in September and production is already underway. 

All three shows have also had their launch dates confirmed: the final batch of episodes from Discovery's fourth season will start airing on 10 February, whilst Picard's second season will launch on 3 March. Strange New Worlds will then debut on 5 May. In addition, animated show Lower Decks is expected to return with its third season in the summer, with CG-animated show Prodigy already working on a second season, expected to debut late this year or early next.

Paramount+, the rebranded version of CBS All Access, has enjoyed significant success with its streaming service, last year reporting they were two years ahead of schedule with their expected customer base. Much of the service's success has been pinned on Star Trek, with the streamer inking a $160 million deal to keep Star Trek showrunner Alex Kurtzman on board until the end of 2026. The only other long-term success on the network is The Good Fight. However, the streamer is diversifying with a larger slate of drama and comedy projects, with the mega-budgeted Halo TV series due to launch in the coming months, as well as a Frasier sequel series in late 2022 or 2023.

The streamer is also making the bold choice to go international. Paramount+ will be launching overseas versions of its content in several dozen countries starting in the Spring, in some areas in conjunction with local streaming services. Controversially with the fanbase, Paramount has started pulling its Star Trek content from Netflix and Amazon Prime ahead of the move.

The multiple renewals also mean that Star Trek is catching up on Doctor Who in terms of the number of seasons confirmed in a franchise. Doctor Who has aired 39 seasons since its its inception in 1963, with a 40th already confirmed for 2023, as well as four seasons of spinoff show Torchwood, one of Class and five of The Sarah Jane Adventures, for a total of 50 seasons. These renewals will put Star Trek on 46 seasons.

Some rumours are stating that the third season of Picard will be last one, due to Sir Patrick Stewart's age (Stewart turns 82 in July), and once it ends it will be replaced by one of two new Star Trek series in development behind the scenes, a long-gestating series about Section 31 starring Michelle Yeoh, and a series focusing on the Next Generation fan-favourite character of Worf. No official confirmation of this has been given.

Microsoft to buy Activision Blizzard in the biggest deal in video game history

Microsoft is making a massive play to buy Activision Blizzard, one of the largest publishing and development companies in video gaming. The deal is reportedly worth $68.7 billion, almost ten times the price that Microsoft paid to acquire the Zenimax and Bethesda family of publishers almost a year and a half ago.

News of the deal has sent seismic shockwaves through the video game industry. Activision Blizzard is traditionally one of the two biggest non-manufacturer video game companies in the West, competing for that title with Electronic Arts. Formed in 2008 from the merger of Activision and Vivendi Games (the former parent company of Blizzard Entertainment), the company is best-known for its giga-selling Call of Duty shooter franchise and the slew of IPs produced by Blizzard: WarCraft, StarCraft, Diablo and Overwatch. Activision Blizzard's other companies include online gaming giant King, creators of the Candy Crush series, and Major League Gaming, a huge player in the eSports field. Other franchises linked to the company include Crash Bandicoot, Skylanders and Guitar Hero. They have also published the Destiny series.

Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda has already given them control of the Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Wolfenstein, Dishonored and Prey franchises, in addition to first-party Microsoft franchises like FORZA and Halo. Microsoft has also been buying up smaller studios, such as Obsidian Entertainment (Pillars of Eternity, The Outer Worlds, Grounded, Alpha Protocol) and inXile (creators of the Wasteland RPG series). They also control the Minecraft franchise after acquiring it in 2014.

The news will position Microsoft as the third-largest video game company in the world by revenue, behind only Sony and Chinese giant Tencent. It will be expected that Activision and Blizzard's formidable battery of franchises will join the Xbox Game Pass, a Netflix-like service allowing players to access a huge library of games for only a modest monthly subscription fee.

Activision Blizzard has recently endured a storm of controversy over long-standing allegations of harassment, bullying and unprofessional behaviour at several of its studios, but most notably Blizzard. Multiple staff have quit Blizzard in recent months and work on several in-progress games (such as the long-gestating Diablo IV and Overwatch 2) has been delayed as a result.

Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard will entail a massive shift in the gaming landscape and will likely see antitrust investigations to ensure that Microsoft is not acting anti-competitively. Sony PlayStation and Nintendo Switch owners will likely find themselves shut out as those franchises also become Xbox-platform exclusives, which will have enormous ramifications for customer choice.

The Expanse: Season 6

The Solar system is reeling from the massive attacks unleashed on Earth and Mars by Marcos Inaros. With Earth still under threat, the UN fleet is unable to take the offensive, leaving it to rebel Belters led by Carmina Drummer and privateers like the Rocinante crew to keep Inaros on the defensive. Meanwhile, on the colony world of Laconia a bold renegade Martian admiral is tapping the planet's resources to build his own empire.

The Expanse has reliably been the best space opera TV show of the last decade, shading higher-profile but dumber fare like Star Trek: Discovery and Foundation with its excellent character development, outstanding visuals and strong writing. It has also, perhaps surprisingly, ended with only six of the nine novels in the series having been brought to the screen.

The reasons for ending the show here are persuasive: six seasons is a hell of a long time for any space opera TV show, two better than the much more heavily-feted Battlestar Galactica reboot, and only one less than three of the Star Treks. Going for another three might have been a bit too ambitious. In addition, there is a substantial time-skip in the books between the sixth and seventh volumes, which would require the TV show to put all the actors in aging makeup (always iffy) or recasting the whole cast (also dubious).

In that light you'd expect the producers to rewrite the ending of the sixth book, Babylon's Ashes, into an ending for the whole series. But they don't really do that either. The season adapts Babylon's Ashes with some fairly logical changes (substituting Drummer for Michio, as they did last season) and also some eyebrow-raising ones. The season brings in and adapts Strange Dogs, a self-contained novella exploring the initial colonisation of Laconia and the discover of its secrets there, as a prelude to the massive role Laconia plays in the closing three novels of the series. Adapting Strange Dogs with no guarantee that the setup will pay off later on is...bold, especially when this final season only has six episodes to work with rather than the more normal ten.

That said, giving Babylon's Ashes only six episodes to work with is a good idea: the novel is one of the weaker in the series, acting more as an extended coda to the epic events of Nemesis Games then a novel in its own right, with a huge number of POV characters meaning that its pacing was shot to hell and it felt like the final defeat of the bad guys was done way too easily. Season 6 of the show, on the other hand, mitigates almost all these problems. The pacing means the story is tighter and more focused; most of the other characters aren't even in the show so the focus can remain tight on the Roci family, Avasarala and Drummer; and the defeat of the bad guys is here complicated and given more weight. As usual, the CGI is exemplary, clearly showing what's going on (the current trend for murky, "arty" CG in space shows which just means you can't tell what's going on can go die in a fire) and delivering excellent space battles on a tight budget. The actors are all as great as we're used to, but I have to say that Cara Gee as Drummer really, really steps it up this season and goes above and beyond the call of duty, and gets almost all of the season's best moments.

There are a few other weaknesses: the devastation inflicted on Earth in the prior season seems to have been written off more quickly than even the book managed to do, and having major characters die off-screen always feels cheap. It might have been better to have just not mentioned such characters rather than do that. It's also a bit unclear how the Rocinante managed to overtake an enemy ship which had a massive head start on them in one chase. But these are fairly minor issues, some inherited from the source material.

The final (for now, maybe) season of The Expanse (****½) is the show doing what it's always done well: telling great character stories intermixed with politics and war, backed up by outstanding vfx and one of the best scores on television. The season's excellence is mitigated by the decision to continue doing setup work for future episodes that might never come, time that might have been better spent with our main characters. Still, if there's one thing you can't fault The Expanse for is its optimism and its willingness to take risks. The season and the entire series is available to watch worldwide on Amazon Prime Television.

Eternals

Seven thousand years ago, a group of super-powered begins known as "Eternals" arrived on Earth to safeguard the planet from mutated creatures called Deviants. Five centuries ago they defeated the last Deviant and split up, living undercover as humans until such time that they are recalled for their next mission by their masters, the Celestials. However, the return of the Deviants and the death of one of their number spurts the Eternals to reunite and face down a new threat.

The Eternals began life as a Marvel Comics team, created in 1976 by Jack Kirby after his defection to DC Comics in 1970 to work on the New Gods comics line. Unceremoniously cancelled by DC, Kirby brought the idea back to Marvel and reworked it (to avoid getting sued), where it was more successful. Though not quite a Marvel mainstay, the Eternals have resurfaced intermittently through the years, crossing over with other Marvel properties and characters.

The news that Marvel Studios was developing a movie based on the team was a surprise, given it was a relatively obscure group of characters and integrating the high-powered, celestial team with the more grounded characters elsewhere in the MCU was going to be challenging. However, the MCU's unexpected success in making characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy work gave the studio greater confidence in proceeding with the project, even tapping the much-feted Chloe Zhao to direct and co-write (Zhao won an Oscar for her previous movie, Nomadland, whilst working on Eternals).

The result is an ambitious movie. Most MCU films introduce one or at most two or three major new characters to the MCU at any one time. Eternals introduces a mind-boggling ten at once. Although the film does have some previous work to rest on - the Celestials were introduced in 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy - it doe have a lot of its own worldbuilding to bring into the mix. It also has to establish each Celestial's major power and ability, as well as their motivation and characterisation. This it achieves through flashbacks to different periods in Earth's history, showing where the Eternals were present and how events changed them and their characters.

Eternals also makes a very bold decision: to drop most of the MCU's snarky, pop-reference-laden humour. Not completely, of course, there are still some jokes and a few quips and a bit of family banter, but the humour is toned down here from the MCU norm, which will be a relief to those tired of the humour undercutting the seriousness of the action. However, it is also a problem in that leaves Eternals as the most serious - and occasionally dour - Marvel movie since Thor: The Dark World.

Fortunately the film mostly overcomes that. The runtime is dangerously close to creaky at well over two and a half hours, but there's so many stories, characters and ideas on display here that the pacing generally doesn't flag. If anything, it could be argued that Eternals needed to be longer, say a six or eight-hour mini-series on Disney+ which could introduce the characters and add a lot more weight to their backgrounds. As it stands, the film feels like a truncated Greatest Hits of a band you've only just encountered which leaves a lot of great work on the cutting room floor.

The cast is stacked and for the most part excellent, particularly Richard Madden as Ikaris, Lia McHugh as Sprite, Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Salma Hayek as Ajak and Angelina Jolie as Thena. Lauren Ridloff (Makkari) is great but gets disappointingly little to do, whilst Kit Harington shows up solely to set up his role in a completely different project (likely the upcoming Blade reboot). Gemma Chan is fine as Sersi but feels like she needed some better writing, as she ends up being arguably the least-defined Eternal (power and character-wise) despite being our viewpoint character for most of the movie. In fact, the connections to the rest of the MCU - the Eternals defend why they didn't intervene in any of the previous incidents where Earth was threatened, and Kingo laments not being able to reconnect with old buddy Thor - feel very incongruous, to the point where this may have worked better as a completely stand-alone film.

Eternals does do something interesting and relatively original though, namely in that all the characters that matter are in the actual main team. The enemies are monsters rather than some nefarious, offscreen villain and the tension and drama comes from divisions within the team as they debate strategy. A late-film plot twist is effective in splitting the group apart and setting us up for a Civil War-style internal dispute, which is a bold move given we've only just met these characters. In fact, it feels like Eternals' plot might have been better saved for the sequel, with this first film instead focusing on meeting the characters in a more relaxed way as they fight a more generic threat. However, you can't fault the ambition here. Eternals seems to know that audiences are in danger of getting bored with the traditional Marvel formula and tries to spruce it up with a greater focus on internal dissent and a more well-balanced conflict between people whose powers, abilities and weaknesses (even the bad guys get those) are established beforehand.

The result is an interesting movie which isn't altogether successful. Eternals (****) has a great cast, a strong central plot, some genuinely impressive vfx sequences (increasingly hard these days) and surprisingly good pacing, despite its length. However, it also biting off more than it can chew narratively, not all the characters are as well-developed as others, the links with the MCU feel contrived and the film's lack of humour leaves it feeling a bit heavy on occasion (and the fewer moments of humour now feel incongruous). The things it does well, it does very well though, and it's definitely an MCU movie that at least feels like it's trying to do something fresh.

Eternals is now available globally on Disney+.

Arcane: Season 1

The city of Piltover is divided between its affluent "topside" and the poor "undercity," where people have to grind mercilessly to survive and are easy prey for crime and addiction. A gang of youngsters conduct a daring burglary in topside, stealing a valuable set of gemstones, but in the process set in motion a chain of events that will unfold over the next decade, and lead to the separation of two devoted sisters and their reunion, years later, in explosive circumstances.

Released in 2009, the video game League of Legends has become one of the most popular online games in the world. A "moba," (multiplayer online battle arena), the game pitches two teams against one another, with each player controlling a champion. The game originally had very light worldbuilding, but over the years has developed a detailed world and individual backstories for each champion. Riot Games made the decision several years ago to develop a spin-off TV series about these backstories.

So far, so uninteresting. But the resulting animated TV show, Arcane, has become a surprise smash hit, one of Netflix's globally-biggest shows of all time and showered with critical praise, with some calling it the best genre show of 2021 and maybe the best show, full stop. Foreknowledge of the game is absolutely not required, and the series stands on its own two feet.

Best described as an urban epic fantasy, the series depicts the two sides of the coin that is life in the steampunk metropolis of Piltover. Both sides of the city develop an intricate cast of characters, each with their own motivations and story arc. Most of the initial focus is on the undercity, where a band of young criminals including sisters Vi and Powder and their friends Mylo and Claggor (and occasional ally Ekko) work under the mentorship of bar-owner/surrogate father Vander. At first it appears that the story is going to be an animated take on Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora or Brandon Sanderson's The Final Empire, with a band of plucky young criminals rebelling against the system and trying to find a way to be free and prosperous. The first three episodes contrast this story against events topside, mainly Jayce Talis discovering a way of combining magic and technology together, aided by his friends Viktor and Caitlyn, and supported by their political ally, Councillor Mel Medarda. Eventually, the young gang run afoul of arch-criminal Silco, who is raising a criminal empire based on his control of the drug shimmer.

The third episode pulls off a massive game-changing shift in the story and results in a flash forwards by almost a decade, where the rest of the story unfolds in unexpected directions, with apparently evil antagonists showing a human side and formerly heroic protagonists showing a darker and more chaotic side as events unfold.

The most striking thing about Arcane's presentation is its remarkable art style. A lot of modern animated shows, particularly CG-animated ones, are limited by budget, accumulating assets and experience before cutting loose later on (the early episodes of The Clone Wars and The Dragon Prince are almost painful in how limited they are before they finally get to the point where they can really go to town later on). Arcane's budget, on the other hand, is extremely generous and allows it to splash on custom animations and an attention to detail that is remarkable. In terms of art style, comparisons have been drawn with Into the Spider-Verse and some of the better entries in Love+Death+Robots, but Arcane is able to sustain this style for nine 40 to 50 minute episodes, which is remarkable. The show's mixing of 3D elements with painterly, 2D backgrounds is also impressive.

The show also eschews the traditional fantasy orchestral score for something more innovative that mixes pop, rock, electro and rock. It doesn't always work, but it's ambitious and interesting (typically, the Imagine Dragons theme song is probably the least-impressive bit of music in the show).

These things are important but much more crucial to the show's success is the writing, which for the most part is very good. Each character is carefully delineated and characterised. Powder, whom League of Legends fans know is destined to become a very different character when she grows up, gets the lion's share of development and her mental health issues are handled with surprising nuance. Vi, the closest thing we have to an outright heroine, makes for a charismatic lead. Both protagonists are helped with outstanding voice acting from Ella Purnell (who is also one of the main stars of Yellowjackets, 2021's other main claimant to being Show of the Year) and Hailee Steinfeld (Hawkeye, Into the Spider-Verse, Dickinson). The rest of the cast also gets terrific development, particularly boo-hiss villain Silco (Jason Spisak) who develops into a much more complex character, and Viktor (Game of Thrones's Harry Lloyd), who starts off almost as a side-character but becomes more central as the narrative unfolds.

The story is divided into three acts, each lasting three episodes, which helps overcome Netflix's recurring issue with stodgy pacing. Each three-part story has its down focus and themes which pushes forward the overall arc as well.

There are weaknesses in the writing. Characters have a slightly annoying tendency to stand and look on in slack-jawed disbelief at things that are clearly about to explode three feet away, hit them, fall on them or otherwise do them harm rather than getting out of the way. There are moments of confusion in the animation when it's unclear if a character is supposed to have been killed, knocked out or simply got out of the way and was fine. Most of the dialogue is very good, but there's moments when the writer can't stop themselves descending into cliche. There's also shout-outs to fans of the video games which mean nothing to people unfamiliar with it; I'm still uncertain what Heimerdinger's role in every episode is except to be proven wrong about everything. There's also an MCU-level of vagueness to the physicality of the fight scenes: will these relatively minor hit kill someone or leave them crippled for life, or will this huge being-hit-by-a-rhino-level of physical impact result in only a minor level of inconvenience? Your guess is as good as anyone's.

Despite a plethora of minor issues, most of which are eminently ignorable, Arcane's first season (****½) emerges as an excellent slice of on-screen fantasy. Mostly well-written, with an outstanding cast of characters you want to learn more about, and with intriguing worldbuilding and excellent pacing supporting superb visuals and a solid soundtrack, it is well worth a watch. The show is available globally now on Netflix.

RIP Dave Wolverton

News has sadly broken that science fiction and fantasy author Dave Wolverton, also known by his pen-name David Farland, has passed away at the age of 64 due to injuries sustained in a fall. He was best known for his Runelords epic fantasy series and his contributions to the Star Wars universe.

Born John David Wolverton in Monroe, Oregon, he began writing speculative fiction whilst in college. His career began taking off after he won the Writers of the Future contest in 1987 for the novella On My Way to Paradise (revised and published as his debut novel in 1989). The novel was also the runner up for Philip K. Dick Award for Best Novel in 1990. Wolverton later served as a judge in the contest and edited the spin-off annual anthology from 1992 to 1998, and again from 2013 to 2019.

Wolverton continued to write SF with the Anee duology and the Golden Queen trilogy. He also branched into tie-in fiction, writing the Star Wars novel The Courtship of Princess Leia, which introduced major recurring factions in the Star Wars Expanded Universe such as the Hapes Consortium and the Witches of Dathomir (who were referenced as recently as this week's episode of The Book of Boba Fett). He wrote several additional novels in the same universe.

Wolverton's career went up a notch when he began writing epic fantasy under the pen-name "David Farland," starting with The Sum of All Men (1998). Wolverton didn't want readers to know it was him, and was reportedly unhappy when he was "outed" in by a UK SF publication; in their defence, they noted that the author biography in the UK edition immediately revealed his true identity. The resulting Runelords sequence became a successful fantasy series, expanding to eight novels by 2009. A ninth volume was promised, but had so far not been published.

Using the Farland name, Wolverton also published the Serpent Catch and Ravenspell series.

Wolverton was also a noted writing teacher, giving lessons and classes on the nature of writing over many years. Among authors he tutored and mentored were James Dashner (the Maze Runner series) and Brandon Sanderson (The Stormlight Archive, Mistborn).

Dave Wolverton was a popular author with a strong drive to encourage others to write and write well. He will be missed.

NBC greenlights QUANTUM LEAP sequel series pilot

NBC has greenlit the pilot for a successor series to Quantum Leap, the popular time travel show which ran for five seasons from 1989 to 1993.

The new series is set thirty years after the previous show ended and will see a new team investigating the disappearance of Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) in the original Quantum Leap Accelerator programme. Beckett randomly ping-ponged around time for five years under the watchful eye of the super-computer Ziggy and Beckett's friend and monitor, Admiral Al Calavicci (Dean Stockwell), before disappearing altogether in the series finale, which ended on the sombre note that Sam never returned home, but continued helping people through time. Quantum Leap achieved significant critical and commercial success, making both Bakula and Stockwell household names, before its divisive ending.

Rumours of a remake or continuation have continuously circulated since the original show ended, with most reports circulating about a feature film spin-off or a full remake unconnected to the previous show.

The pilot will be co-written by Steven Lilian and Bryan Wynbrandt, previously best-known for showrunning God Friended Me and working on La Brea, Gotham, Hawaii Five-O, CSI: NY, Alcatra and Kyle XY as writers and/or producers. Original Quantum Leap creator and showrunner Donald P. Bellisario will produce and advise on the project.

Although Dean Stockwell sadly passed away two months ago, it sounds like Scott Bakula may possibly reprise his role, although it sounds like the premise will be searching for his character, so he is not expected to be a regular character, despite the frequent fan suggestion that Sam Beckett take the Al role in advising a new leaper on their mission through time (possibly Sam's daughter or grandchild).