Whispers, Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 01/02/13

Happy New Year, everyone! We hope it will be a happy and productive one for you. This week, we have more news and spoilers about upcoming books, Once Upon a Time, Doctor Who, and Supernatural. You can access previous spoilers columns here.

Horrific Reads, Bloody Off the Press
By Nathaniel Katz

The first week of this year doesn’t seem to be the most populous, insofar as horror releases are concerned, but what it does bring seems more than intriguing enough to make up for that.

For those of us who have missed out, the first three novels of Ian Woodhead’s Zombie Armeggedon series are now available in one volume. In Triptych Decay, we see it all begin, as zombies erupt in Breakspear Gardens, wreak havoc while a Country singer tries to entertain the Stockholm Club’s crowd, and make their way all the way to the posh housing of Greenacre Rise.

Perhaps, though, we should take a step back from such an all-encompassing apocalypse and focus on a single woman. Well, to be more precise, a single psychic woman. Julia Severn is well aware of this ability of hers. She is, in fact, at a school for psychics. But that is not to say that all is well. As her relationship with her mentor falls to pieces, Severn begins a supernatural investigation into the cause of her mother’s life and suicide. From there, the plot of The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits explodes.

Finally, I’d like to turn your attention to a recent release from a few weeks ago that, I must admit, I missed completely at the time. I am talking about The Tainted Earth , a collection by George Berguno now out from Egaeus Press. The volume contains eight stories and a novel, all of which promise to be strange as can be and fantastic in every sense of the word.

Once Upon a Time (Sunday nights, 8pm, ABC)
By Heather S. Vina

A bit of new casting information, to start the new year off!

TV Line announced that actress Sonequa Martin-Green (The Walking Dead and The Good Wife) will appear in multiple episodes as Tamara.

Adam Horowitz announced on his Twitter account the title for episode 16: “ep. 216 ‘The Miller’s Daughter’ — and thus endeth the #OnceUponATime 2012 #holidayspoilersHappy New Year!”

Could Tamara be “The Miller’s Daughter”?

He also announced that Julian Morris will be making another appearance as Prince Phillip, and soon: “Yes, Prince Philip as brilliantly portrayed by @Ju1ianMorris will return… And soonish. #OnceUponATime #holidayspoilers”

TVLine reported that Horrowitz announced on his Twitter feed that Smee would also be returning. The titles of episodes 14 and 15 are “Manhattan” and “The Queen Is Dead.”

The Vancity site has some more behind-the-scenes location pictures up, looks like for the same episode. You can find them here and here.

Spoiler TV has up the latest promo for the next new episode, “The Cricket Game,” on their site.

Huffington Post has up the extended promo up on their site.

Remember that the show returns on January 6!

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

Well, “The Snowmen” has aired! What did everyone think of it? I quite enjoyed it, but I will save my thoughts for my review! In England, the episode received an Appreciation Index of 87, which, as the DoctorWhoNews site states, makes it “higher than the majority of the previous Christmas Day specials, with last year’s ‘The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe’ scoring 84. Only the first part of the Tenth Doctor’s swan song, ‘The End of Time – Part One,’ equalled the score of 87.” It was beaten by Downton Abbey and Call the Midwife, both of which scored 90.

The overnight ratings are also in (Finals will be out in the next week or so). It was the fifth most watched show of the day, with an audience of 7.59 million viewers, which was a share of 33.9% of the total TV audience. That’s down from last year’s overnight figure, where it had 8.9 million watching. But last year, it also aired later, which helped its ratings.

Executive Producer Caroline Skinner did an interview with io9, where she teases what’s coming up for the coming season and the Doctor’s relationship with his new Companion.

There’s no date announced yet for the second half of the season. But meanwhile, you can watch the trailer for it here and, hopefully, they will release the date soon!

And to tide us Doctor fans over, the Royal Mail has announced that they will be releasing a set of stamps, featuring all of the Doctors, for the 50th Anniversary! Alas, Matt Smith’s picture does leave a bit to be desired, but it’s all very exciting!

Now I just need to figure out how to get my hands on a set of those….

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

There are no new episodes until January 16. In contradiction of the print TV Guide‘s confusing description, the CW is listing this week’s repeat as “What’s Up, Tiger Mommy?”. Since that’s the most logical repeat they would air next, it makes sense. Not that they’ve followed logic much in the past when it comes to scheduling repeats.

The official description for the next episode, “Torn and Frayed” (8.10), originally entitled “Don’t Stop Believing,” is up:

“CASTIEL MUST SAVE A FELLOW ANGEL – Naomi (guest star Amanda Tapping) tells Castiel (Misha Collins) that Crowley (guest star Mark Sheppard) is holding an angel captive and Castiel must rescue him before Crowley finds out their secrets. Castiel turns to Dean (Jensen Ackles) for help. Meanwhile, Sam (Jared Padalecki) meets with Amelia (guest star Liane Balaban) who asks him to make a choice: stay with her or leave and never contact her again. Robert Singer directed the episode written by Jenny Klein (#110).”

I’ll admit that I don’t care much one way or the other about the fate of Alfie (the angel Crowley is torturing in the promo) and that I’m not wild about seeing yet more Crowley torturing, either. I think we’ve seen enough, already, to know that Crowley is EVOL. Torturing is practically all we see him do these days. We get it, show. Move on.

I couldn’t care less about Samelia, but we’re getting it, so it is what it is.

On the other hand, I’m intrigued that Castiel is only turning to Dean. It contradicts the usual CW promo thing of “Sam and Dean” for storylines that are really Dean-oriented. It looks as though Sam’s storyline with Amelia may set him apart from the main action, though the promo does indicate he’ll be involved to at least some extent. This does rather disappoint me, since resolving both of the cliffhangers (the rift between the brothers and Amelia popping up in real time) seems like a waste of dramatic tension. Why not give them separate episodes? But hey, maybe they will. These promos have been very misleading in the past.

The title for 8.17 has come out. It’s “Goodbye, Stranger.” SPN_Party has a nifty table up of all the titles and airing dates so far, though keep in mind the caveat they’ve put up top that the upcoming dates haven’t yet been changed to reflect the January 16 start date. I don’t know if the show will close up its previously scheduled gap and air a new episode the last week of January to make up for the later midseason start date or not.

I’ve seen some decidedly odd spec about this title, apparently because a lot of people don’t remember Supertramp’s massive hit of the same title from the 70s on their album, Breakfast in America. It’s a song about a guy who is ditching his latest lover, abandoning her before dawn while she’s still asleep. He is a gay blade who engages in a series of short-term relationships because he loathes commitment or anything that might tie him down. In fact, it could easily apply to the end of most of either brother’s long series of hookups. The chorus is most relevant:

Goodbye, Stranger.
It’s been nice.
Hope you find your paradise.
Tried to see your point of view.
Hope your dreams will all come true.
Goodbye, Mary. Goodbye, Jane.
Will we ever meet again?
Feel no sorrow. Feel no shame.
Come tomorrow, feel no pain.

The most obvious spec to me is that it’s about a final break between Sam and Amelia. It could also indicate a major break between the brothers (“Tried to see your point of view”). Also possible is that the “stranger” and the narrator of the title are guest characters we haven’t met yet and the brothers aren’t actually involved in in the title conflict of what will effectively be an MOTW episode. Though, admittedly, the 17th episode of a season is usually a pretty major mytharc one.

Less likely, though possible, are Castiel or Benny being killed off or otherwise written out. However, they are not strangers to Dean and Sam’s relationship to them both is not at all like the song’s lyrics. We don’t even know if either of them is in the episode. So, I think that spec is pretty unlikely.

There’s what looks like a new CW promo out for the new year. There is some season eight stuff from the show in it that flashes past, though the only thing that looked at all new was a bit with the brothers in suits turning away from a set of green doors. And that could have been from 8.02.

Also, TV Line’s now doing a slideshow for its spoilers of upcoming shows returning in January. The one for the show plugs the Charlie episode (again? Really?) and has a pretty vague quote by Jeremy Carver about Grandpa Winchester: “When you meet your father’s father, that brings up some of your father issues. In other words, what did your father’s father have to do with the way your father turned out? A lot of that is explored head-on.” The photo, which is from “A Little Slice of Kevin,” appears to be new. I think. Anyway, it’s pretty nice.

Ratings for last week’s repeat of the season premiere were surprisingly good, gaining the show a 0.4/1 and 1.21 million in audience. This tied it with Arrow and The Vampire Diaries for first place in the demo and it came in second for audience after Arrow.

Otaku on Television by the Numbers posted some more numbers for the show’s overall performance this season so far.

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, Once Upon a Time, Grimm and Supernatural.

If you like these spoilers, please help continue our site by making a donation, buying one of our fiction issues, or buying one of our books: Fraterfamilias, Historical Lovecraft, Future Lovecraft, and our Gothic horror anthology, Candle in the Attic Window. You can also buy Paula’s non-fiction book on medieval Spanish history, Templar Convivencia.