Fan Rants

For those of you who are not familiar with QMX, aka Quantum Mechanix, they are a great little company that puts out top quality sci-fi related merchandise. Everything from simple t-shirts up to artisian quality studio duplicated models.

They made a wonderful reproduction of the ship Serenity from the Firefly TV series last year and now have a Viper from Battlestar Galactica available. Recently A YouTube video showed up of BSG star Katee Sackhoff, ”Starbuck“, showing off her personal Viper replica. Its a cool vid and be sure to watch it all the way through, Edward James Olmos, ”Adama”, filmed the vid and has a nice dialog with Katie at the end.

TV|Line reports that Jamie Bamber, better known to most as Apollo from Battlestar Galactica, will be starring in the new fantasy cop drama 17th Precinct.

This is a Ron Moore project coming from the peacock network. Ron worked previously with Bamber as the creator of the new BSG. The story takes place in the town of Excelsior (wonder if Stan Lee gets a residual from the name) where magic is a common thing.

Bamber will be playing a homicide detective on the show and is joined by veteran actress Stockard Channing. I am certainly looking forward to a new Ron Moore show though I will be sad to see Jamie leaving Law & Order: UK.

Related articles

• NBC Taps Jamie Bamber for Lead Role in 17th Precinct (dreadcentral.com)
• NBC’s Magic-Cop 17TH PRECINCT Pilot To Reunite BATTLESTAR GALACTICA’s Jamie Bamber and Ronald D. Mooore!! (aintitcool.com)

Son of a…

Well, good news for local convention Farpoint Con…you have an excellent guest coming to your show next month, Tahmoh Penikett. Of course bad news for local Firefly fans is that Adam Baldwin has canceled a local appearance for the third time. I think his right-wing ways may be keeping him far from the nation’s capital. You might want to not invite him again until there is a republican president.

Farpoint is an excellent convention held each winter in Towson, Maryland. This year it is being held February 18th-20th and despite actors dropping out at the 11th hour, has an impressive lineup.

Tahmoh Penikett * Battlestar Galactica & Dollhouse

Laurie Holden * Walking Dead’s “Andrea”

Bonita Friedricy * Chuck’s “General Beckman“

Press Release from Farpoint:

Tahmoh Penikett (Helo from BSG and Paul Ballard from Dollhouse) is joining us in February!  That is the good news.  The bad news – he is taking the place of Adam Baldwin, who has had to cancel due to work commitments.  Adam sends his extreme regrets, but his work schedule has made it impossible to attend.

Tahmoh will be signing one item at no charge per convention member each day (the member provides the item), and will also have additional items for sale.  He will be attending the banquet on Friday (travel itinerary willing), will be onstage Saturday and Sunday, and is planning to judge Masquerade on Saturday night.

Someone has recreated the Beastie Boys ‘Sabotage’ music video, almost frame by frame, with scenes from Battlestar Galactica. Nice!

I really don’t like doing reviews of a new series until at least the third episode. You can get really mixed feelings from a TV show when it first comes out, so best to let it get its feet wet a little first. So no, this review is not late, just matured.

My first memory of the Human Target: was from reading some old DC Comics issues of Batman in the 1980′s. It was an interesting character but not really enough to drive his own comic at the time. Christopher Chance, the name he went by but not necessarily his real one, was a master of disguise. When he entered into a contract with a client he would literally become that person. A very sharp mind, skilled martial artist and marksman made him a great bodyguard/double.

Next up, I ran into the character in the early 1990′s in a very short-lived (properly so) TV series starring Rick Springfield. Yeah… that pop singer/soap star was cast as a bodyguard. Well the series, which I still have on VHS if that tells you anything about my packrat problem, only lasted 7 episodes on ABC. The FX’s they used for Springfield doing his makeup was pretty cheesy, but the concept for the show was good.

Now we have the new FOX series, which at this point has had three episodes aired. Starring Mark Valley as Chance, Chi McBride as Winston his handler (formerly from Pushing Daisies) and Jackie Earle Haley as Guerrero the resident geek/brain (he was Rorschach in the film Watchmen).

Frankly the casting is spot on, all solid actors with their own strengths and they thus far have brought solid performances to the show. The main thing they have changed is the fact that Chance is no longer a master of disguise but rather a bodyguard. A highly skilled and connected bodyguard that is.

They have dropped many hints that he may have been a spy at one time, but nothing concrete. What we do know is, he speaks multiple languages, so far Japanese and Russian, knows martial arts, is a master shot and tactician.

I like the show for its action and humor. So far the writing has been very well done and as I said earlier, the casting is very good. They are actually using some quality comic book writers for the scripting, Carmine Infantino and Len Wein have writing credit on the first two episodes. Also they have had some excellent guest stars so far, Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica), Danny Glover, Alessandro Juliani (BSG), Sean Maher (Firefly), and Emmanuelle Vaugier (CSI NY).

I think FOX may have a good show on their hands, if they don’t muck things up like they have with other shows in the past. Over all I give this a 3.5 Stars out of 5!