TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 8/24/11

This week, we have spoilers for upcoming show Once Upon a Time (which we will start reviewing this fall), and returning veterans Doctor Who and Supernatural. We’ll also start reviewing Doctor Who again when it comes back from hiatus on August 27:

Doctor Who (Saturday nights, 9pm, BBC America)
By Heather S. Vina

Doctor Who is back this weekend, yay! Back on Saturday, August 27, with the episode “Let’s Kill Hitler”, it will run for another 6 episodes before ending again for the season on October 1st.

As to when it will be back again…there have been some different stories about that. We do know that Matt Smith is signed for another 14 episodes (a full season of 13 episodes, plus a Christmas episode) and we do know that the BBC ordered another full season of 14 episodes (again, a Christmas episode and a full season). But there have been different stories about when these episodes will air. One report had them breaking up the season, so that half of it would air in 2012 and half of it would air in 2013, which was, quite frankly, upsetting for a lot of fans to hear, me included.

But today, an interview with Steven Moffat was released by The Daily Beast (Beware of minor spoilers for the rest of season 6!) that tells a different story. When he’s asked if the reports about budget cuts at the BBC are the reason for the decision not to air the full season 7 in 2012, Moffat had this to say: “Absolute nonsense. First of all, we are airing in 2012. The only thing that’s happening is that we’re moving a bit later…There’s lots of reasons for that that will become clear quite soon…It is certainly not a reduced episode count. Do you think the BBC would really let that happen? With an average audience of 10 million? Doctor Who’s international profile is huge. It’s never been more successful. You’re not going to reduce a show like this. The opposite is going to happen, in fact.”

Which leads one to wonder: What does he mean about the “opposite” happening? Could the BBC actually be doing more episodes than 14? For me, that would be awesome, as more Matt Smith as Eleven is a good thing! But considering Steven Moffat has said he’s quite busy with both Doctor Who and Sherlock, I’m not quite sure how that would work.

Regardless, for this Doctor Who fan, Moffat stating that we will be getting a full season in 2012 is very good news, indeed!

Once Upon a Time (Sunday nights, 9pm, ABC)
By Heather S. Vina

This show doesn’t begin airing until October 23 on ABC, but there are already spoilers coming out for it!

From an article with Danielle Turchiano, the LA Times Examiner TV Insider, producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz stated that the show would be focusing on fairy tales as a way of showing “hope.” “For us, that’s what a fairytale is. It’s that ability to think your life will get better. It’s why you buy a lottery ticket – because if you win, you get to tell your boss that you’re quitting and you get to move to Paris, and that’s Cinderella, right? One day, she’s sweeping up and the next, she’s going to the ball. Adam and I just wanted to write about something hopeful that, for one hour a week, you put everything aside and you have that feeling.”

Though the show features Snow White and her Prince Charming, with other characters like Red Riding Hood and her Grandmother, the Dwarves, and Gepetto and Pinocchio, with villains the Evil Queen (from Snow White’s fairy tale) and Rumpelstilskin, other fairy tale characters will be making appearances later on. In Episode 4, Cinderella (played by Jessy Schram, who was recently on Falling Skies) and her Prince (played by Tim Phillipps, who appeared on Neighbours) will be making their appearance, and they’ve already filmed their wedding. I’m guessing said wedding will be in the past in Fairy Tale Land, since no one in the present seems to be with the people they love.

Matt Webb Mitovich and Megan Masters at TVLine have an article about the show, with Q&As from the TCA Press Tour.

I saw the pilot at Comic-Con and it was a good first episode, with a lot of interesting characters played by good-to-great actors. My biggest concern is how long they can sustain the mystery of the show before it gets old and frustrating. The whole premise is built on these characters having no memories of who they are and living unhappy lives as a result of the Evil Queen’s curse. You can only sustain that premise so long before viewers get frustrated that no progress is being made in giving these characters some happiness. David Anders (Alias) has been cast as a love interest for Snow White’s alter ego. But how rootable is a romance with Snow White, really, when the viewer knows that her true love and husband is lying comatose in the hospital, only, she doesn’t know it?

The writers and producers are going to have to tread very carefully with this, lest the premise wears out its welcome and the viewers get frustrated and turn off the show.

Supernatural (Friday nights, 9pm, CW)
By Paula R. Stiles

At the end of last Friday’s episode, lo and behold, we finally got a new promo for season seven (which returns on September 23 at 9pm). Then we got an extended version yesterday. I had a feeling we would, as I was seeing new promos for every other show on the CW throughout the episode. The short version has a lot of Castiel being scary and Sam being beaten up. The title cards say, “Kiss Your Cass Goodbye” (A lot of people were not thrilled by the diminutive “Cass”). The first exchange is Castiel saying, “You should be thankful for my mercy” in voiceover. Then Dean says to Castiel, “Cas, this isn’t you. Who are you?” and Castiel says, “I’m God.”

The first two images are blood dripping on the floor and Sam falling to his hands and knees, apparently with a bloody nose. The next bit is the exchange between Dean and Castiel. There are brief shots of Sam gasping for air, Death standing in someone’s living room and Crowley (perhaps in the same room) standing in a crucifixion pose that may or may not be death throes, as he grimaces and pushes out with his fists. In one hand, he’s holding a glass of whiskey.

Then we see Dean punching a policeman in the face with a saltgun, Sam being dragged up to the ceiling by a noose made out of a ceiling lamp chain, and a short sequence showing Castiel lying down bloody and getting up, looking dazed and beaten, in what looks like a kid’s room or a birthday party. Then the last shot is of Castiel outside, from below, blocking out the sun, saying in voiceover, “The Castiel you know is gone.”

The extended version begins with a short sequence of Castiel knocking down a priest at the Lady of Serenity Church. Outside, the sign says, “BELIEVE IN GOD. HE WALKS AMONG US.” In voiceover, Castiel is saying, “Be thankful for my mercy. If you rise up, I will strike you down.” The exchange between Dean and Castiel is split up and used as bookends for the promo. There’s some new dialogue of Castiel saying, “The Castiel you knew is gone.” The title cards read, “In Cass We Fear.” In a montage, Sam is falling down, a bloodied Castiel is apparently being struck by lightning, Bobby and the brothers do a ritual in his library, and there’s a slightly extended bit of Castiel waking up in the child’s room/birthday party. I find myself wondering if, in addition to eating up the souls from Purgatory, Castiel has been possessed by God, or perhaps just a god, since pagan gods in the SPNverse are a type of monster.

We also have new titles for episodes. 7.06 will be “Slash Fiction” and will feature the introduction of a recurring character, “Frank”, who will be a “mad computer genius”. It makes me think that if they really wanted a character like that still around, they shouldn’t have killed Ash off (Though some of the fan speculation that it could be a play on “Dr. Frank-n-furter” from Rocky Horror Picture Show is amusing). Either way, with the life expectancy of the recurring characters these days, I don’t think I’ll be getting too attached. 7.07 will be “All in the Family”, 7.08 will be “The Mentalists” and 7.09 will be “Season Seven, Time for a Wedding!”. All of these titles sound really stupid.

We got a new video interview from Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, in which Ackles was asked straight-out what Dean’s role in the new season would be and did some dancing around the answer worthy of the ballerina from Black Swan. Padalecki even waded in to help. One interesting thing is that Ackles, in response, first said, “Well, I don’t think it’s just Dean’s story…” and moved on to briefly reference the brothers being “back together”, and Sam’s “dealing with more of a personal issue than Dean would” in his storyline of hellpain, before talking about the uberplot. Which makes it sound an awful lot like the uberplot is Dean’s story. In answer to a question about whether Bobby was the only one who would be getting any romantic action, Padalecki seemed to forget all about season six (and the Jessica dream in season five) and said the last time he’d gotten any, Sam opened the last seal. Meanwhile, Ackles said that they had just filmed a scene (so, this is probably in 7.04, which is apparently an MOTW ep) where Dean hits on a bartender who responds positively, causing Dean to reflect that it’s been a while. About Castiel, Padalecki said that the brothers would have to deal with not having an angel to rely on, but Ackles also said that Misha Collins “isn’t totally gone…His character has definitely taken some big hits and will continue to take some hits.”

There were more on-set photos from 7.04 (This time of a nightshoot in which a “demon” menaces a woman and Sam rescues her, while Dean gets grabbed from behind by another(?) “demon”) and a behind-the-scenes pic of Padalecki and Charisma Carpenter for 7.05. If the demon guy who’s grabbing Dean looks familiar, that’s because it’s Faran Tahir from Warehouse 13 and some on the SpoilerTV discussion thread are claiming the character’s name is “Osiris“. As in, the Egyptian god of the dead. The actress is Emilie Ullerup, who played Ashley on Sanctuary. According to IMDB (which is not necessarily reliable), she plays a character named “Mia”.

7.05 started filming on August 21. Phil Sgriccia is directing it. Carpenter has been tweeting a lot from the set, though not much that’s spoilery. Mainly that the character has to chant a lot of Romanian (Ackles commiserated with her by talking about having to shout two pages of Latin. I’m guessing that’s from season five’s “Swap Meat”). Plus, it seems the duck pond is filling up. Quickly.

Guy Bee tweeted a Sam photo from the editing room for 7.03.

The CW put up some promo cards for its show schedule. Interesting note – while most of the shows had pictures of the top-billed characters, Supernatural (which had a photo of Dean) was one of the three (out of ten) that had a picture of the most popular non-top-billed character, instead.

Interviews continue to leak out from Comic-Con. Here is one for Jensen Ackles and one for Misha Collins. Not particularly spoilery, but they do speak to character motivations.

In yet another of her non-spoilers, Ask Kristin apparently tried to stir up trouble (and hits) by hinting that Lisa and Ben would never been seen again and that Castiel would be gone after 7.02. I’m pretty sure Kristin has been predicting we’d never seen Lisa and Ben since, oh, 6.02, so read with a few saltgun shells at hand. Ausiello provided a similar non-spoiler that Mark Sheppard would be returning to the show early in the season (Ya don’t say).

Meanwhile, Matt Roush took a bit of a slap at Supernatural, but considering his ideas of must-see TV are Fringe and Lost (I’d sooner watch paint dry for both), and he ignores the U.S. (well, Canadian, really) version of Being Human‘s rocky start (only approaching Supernatural on a good day in its last few episodes), or that plenty of fans had issues with the middle seasons of Battlestar Galactica, I can’t say I think much of his taste in shows. Though I will agree with him that Farscape ended too soon.

TVmerch has had ordering links up for the 2012 calendars for a week or so, but now, it also has cover images. Calendars will come out October 3 and are available for preorder.

Finally, the ratings for last Friday’s repeat of “Mommy Dearest”, were another 0.4/1 and 990 thousand viewers. Steady as she goes.

We’ll be back next week with more spoilers. Stay tuned and check out our reviews of Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Event and Supernatural.