UpDated 7-2-09

Last year at the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con, the event was ruled by several big named movies that ranged from youthful vampires to illegal vigilantes.  TV was more a side-note than anything else.

This year at the 2009 Comic-Con, things will be a bit different as television programming seems to have a bigger presence than last year.

For instance, the Warner Brothers Television Group will have 11 different panels for their shows.  That’s a studio best for them.  ABC Studios will have 7 panels.  20th Century Fox will have 9 panels.

Do you think your favorite television show will be represented?

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Can it be true?  A rumor is starting to drift about the web-i-verse that there’s a movie on the horizon that will culminate Smallville’s run on The CW.

In the working theory, it will be called “Metropolis”, and it could be slated for a Christmas 2010 airing on the small screen.

After a ton of speculation and “factual” rumors floating around, the time to guess is over.

Callum Blue (Dead Like Me) has been cast for the role of the ever evilly focused General Zod in Smallville.

With General Zod now cast, we can rest easy.  Right?  Maybe.

Callum has had roles in a few shows that you might have seen.  He’s been in Grey’s Anatomy, HBO’s The Tudors, Secret Diary of a Call Girl and the direct to DVD movie release of Dead Like Me.

But aside from this, there are more items to chat about in regards to possible cast news after the break.

During the break between seasons a few bits are developing in regards to the cast of the upcoming 9th season of Smallville.

The latest news I’ve seen is that Brian Austin Green is coming on board the Smallville to play the role of John Corben - or you may know him better as “Metallo.”

The CW Announced their 2009 Fall Schedule and it’s actually pretty thin as far as shows go compared to other networks.  But they do have a few shows we do want to see:  Smallville and Supernatural.

The CW doesn’t exactly fall into the category of power television with the likes of America’s Next Top Model or 90210 and such fare, but they do have a couple of shows that Screen Rant readers appreciate. Yet I’m sure you’d like to know what they have in store for their viewing audiences for the upcoming 2009 Fall season.

With Smallville moving to Fridays and Supernatural getting a new vampire neighbor on Thursday nights, what does the future look like for both shows?

Various factors have me thinking “bleak.”

As we know, Smallville is moving to the dreaded ratings vacuum called Friday night.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s a place networks put shows they don’t care about.  We all saw how Friday night killed viewer numbers for The Sarah Connor Chronicles when it was moved there.  And TSCC had more viewers than Smallville.

The CW released their 2009 lineup on Thursday, May 21st, following all the other network announcements this week.  The lineup has a few new shows, is down a couple of fan-favorite shows and has one schedule twist that surprised me, sort of.

The CW is now a power hitter in the chain of networks.  Their best rated show, America’s Next Top Model doesn’t even break the top 50 network shows.  I know… you’re shocked.

Despite the obvious numbers, Dawn Ostroff calls their lineup of shows “culturally current, quality programming.”  I guess that’s not inaccurate.

Welcome to Screen Rant’s weekly TV Update.

It seems that I’ve reported most of the developing TV news throughout the week.  I’m exhausted but I still dug up a few more bits about the Gossip Girl spin-off, a Chuck tidbit, the move that Smallville is making.

And I’ve got the usual set of numbers for the ratings from last week.

Onward, my fair readers.

This season of Smallville was better than the last few - and yet the last few episodes were starting to force me to extend my patience bubble farther out than normal.  Stilletto?  It felt like it was trying to fall apart for me to some degree, yet I suppose what can you expect from a fantasy show that has inexplicable superpowered aliens?

This reflection on the Smallville season finale will have spoilers…

It’s Thursday and I hope that April 15th didn’t treat you too harshly yesterday. Whether it did or not, I’m still here to razz or rant on some stuff that’s happening in and around the tube.

Stargate Universe

As if this is a surprise to Stargate fans, but Stargate Universe will be having a few notable guest stars in the form of a few veterans reprising their Stargate SG-1 roles.

Yep, you read that right.

Actress and model Serinda Swan made a big appearance on this week’s Smallville playing Superman character, Zatanna. Ms. Swan has had a few small appearances on television shows in recent years but now she’s getting a big break in Disney’s upcoming Tron 2.

In an interview with TV Guide about her Smallville appearance, Serinda confirmed her role in the Tron sequel:

Due to technical difficulties beyond my control, the digital dog ate my homework. Or, I had to write this article twice! The digital dog just sounds more light-hearted than what the second line implies. Enough about my woes with technological gremlins.

There wasn’t a ton of news to report or snark on this week, so I had to dig up enough to make this yet another interesting read. Well, at least I think it is! I do have a few snippets that might be spoilers for The Office (Guest appearance) and Lost (Possible finale shoot notes).

Shall we get on with it?

Smallville has had us emotionally dancing over the last year.  First, we had to wait and wonder if they were headed into a 9th season.  Obviously (now), a new Smallville season is coming.

In conjunction with a 9th season given a green light, it’s been assumed that Tom Welling renewed his contract for that season, although it hasn’t been officially announced.

Unsubstantiated (someone said it, but provided no source or link) rumors say Welling signed a multi-year contract, but I can’t find anything to back that up.  Better yet, let me take it one step further:  We are presuming that Welling renewed his contract!  Didn’t think of that one, did ya?

We’ve not seen any official announcement on a contract renewal between The CW and Welling, have we?  The big question is: If for some wild and odd reason he didn’t renew, would the show go into a 9th season and how?

Hello Screen Rant readers. There isn’t a lot of TV stuff going on, but I did manage to dig up some noise on a few things. Namely some info on the upcoming Caprica DVD, Tin Man, The Mentalist, Dollhouse, Heroes and ER.

Let’s get to it.

After all the noise and going back and forth on whether The CW is or is not going to do anything about two of its major tentpole shows, the wait is finally over.

Today The CW President Dawn Ostroff announced that Supernatural and Smallville were renewed for another season.

That makes it season 9 for Smallville, and Supernatural will be headed into season 5. Woohoo!

As we all know, ratings weren’t too hot for Dollhouse and Sarah Connor Chronicles. Dollhouse did better than expected, while The Sarah Connor Chronicles did suffer the consequences of the dreaded Friday night time slot. That’s an ouch. But I also touch a little on what I saw on Battlestar Galactica, have a bit of Smallville cast news and more cast has been hired for the NCIS spin-off that everyone waiting for. And a few other tidbits & dribbles along the way.

Here is yet one more edition of Thursday’s Weekly TV Wrap Up on Screen Rant!

This week we have news on new shows that FOX has ordered, a bit of news on Dead Like Me, we touch on some House info and more on yet more guest appearances on E.R..

In the confused department, I’ve got some news sort of related to Smallville, and we chat about Ugly Betty getting dumped temporarily.

We wrap it up with a little bit of new news for our overseas readers on a new set of episodes of Red Dwarf.  Let’s get on with it!

Following what I thought was a disappointing half-season opening episode of Smallville last week, Bulletproof (episode 8.12), brought the series back to the higher quality level it’s shown this season.

The episode opens with fan favorite (and one of mine as well) Detective John Jones (aka Martian Manhunter and played by Phil Morris) chasing down a murderer. He catches the perp and hands him off to an obviously unfriendly police officer when suddenly his car is peppered with shots from a sniper.

He does NOT get away.

Bummer.

After a promising first half of Smallville’s 8th season, including a pretty good cliffhanger that teased us with a Doomsday showdown, the January premiere was a huge letdown.

It wasn’t just that we STILL haven’t gotten the Doomsday/Clark Kent battle (maybe next week?), it was that the episode seemed to have dropped in quality back to the soap opera lameness of season 7.

The episode (Legion) opens and the first person we see is Lana walking through the wreckage from the previous episode - and my immediate thought was “Ugh, Lana is STILL on the damned show.” From there we cut to Clark getting almost literally slaughtered by a masked guy with an axe who looks like they borrowed the “Frankenstein” mask from the recent Death Race movie. It turns out he’s a villain from the 31st century, and the Legion of Superheroes shows up just in time to save Clark and send the baddie back to the future.

All kinds of goodies took place this last week. Let’s get on with the tidbits of TV!

1. Bruce’s Public Service Announcement: Be aware that the season premiere of season 4.5 (Is that just not the most ridiculous thing ever?) of Battlestar Galactica that is airing this Friday on January 16th will run over by 3 1/2 minutes. That means you need to make the appropriate changes to whatever recording device you may employ, if that is indeed what you are doing. Me, I’m gonna be there live! Despite in-laws crawling all over my place, they’ve been warned. Back off when my show comes on. Go to sleep, go for a walk, go for a drive, or watch it with me, but git out of my way and don’t talk during my show! I take my BSG serious! Source: SciFi Wire

This Thursday the long awaited return of Smallville graces us with the continuation of Chloe’s disaster of a wedding, never mind her possession by Brainiac.

We’ve told you about the 9th season of Smallville and Tom Welling’s negotiations.  In my search for news, I came across some bits on Michael Rosenbaum and his desire for hair (it will all make sense in a moment).

From comedy sketches called the Amsterdam Kids on Conan O’Brien and doing voice-over work for Trojan condoms and Magnavox, he’s come a long way.  Since Smallville, he’s done a few projects in the form of voice work for a few episodes of PG Porn and Batman: The Brave and The Bold.

Mid to late last year, conjecture was abound as to whether this 8th season of Smallville would be the last season, as had been originally planned.

Many factors were floating around as to the outcome. Does The CW stick to the original plan? Do ratings have an impact on the plans? What about actor availability? Do we, the viewers want a 9th season? OK, that last one was a duh.

Smallville is a show I never really followed or cared about up until this September when I got my hands on the DVD sets from a few friends. Once I started watching, I couldn’t stop and in the span of a just a few months I’ve watched every single episode.

Although not in DC Comics continuity (obviously), the show is amazing for what it is and I can’t think of many other shows that have developed characters so well.

Hey folks, just a reminder for you that tonight’s episode of Smallville features a full-on version of Doomsday!

If you’re not familiar with the character, he’s the big, scary guy who managed to actually kill Superman in the comics a few years back. It was a HUGE event in the comic book world and led to a full year without the “regular” Superman existing in the DC Comics universe.

And tonight we get to watch him face off against Smallville’s version of Superman: Clark Kent.

We’ve been reporting for some time now that Smallville was slated to run an end game in Season 8, making it their final season. Season 8 is moving along pretty well so far and as in some rare scenarios, the success of a final season can sometimes change the minds of network execs.

Face it, cash cows are hard to let go of sometimes.

Rumors or hopes have been floating around the internet that some folks would like to see the show continued. Some fans want to see a spin-off into a Green Arrow series, others want to see Batman and Wonder Woman breeze through the 9th season or various other scenarios.

So it looks like this is going to be it: The final season of Smallville. Will season 8 go out with a bang - or a laughable whimper? Let’s see how things start…

In the season 7 finale they actually went easy on the cliffhangers - all we had was Chloe (Allison Mack) being hauled off by Federal agents, Lex (Michael Rosenbaum) activating the device that would control Clark, and both he and Clark (Tom Welling) apparently buried under tons of ice in the Fortress of Solitude.

There are major, detailed spoilers in this review.

Last season’s finale of Smallville left me feeling disjointed. It felt like a lot was pulled out of the woodwork to make the episode work. While some things did, others didn’t jive with any sense of evolving details.

What didn’t blend for me were things like:

ComicBookMovie is reporting that according to a number of online polls and surveys, Tom Welling “may just be heading to the big screen to portray the role that made him famous on TV.”

To which I say: Bunk.

Their source is a British site called Coventry Telegraph which has gone out and found a bunch of online polls and such where fans are overwhelmingly picking Smallville star Welling as their choice for the man to play Superman in the next movie. One poll has actually gathered 1,482 names voting for Tom Welling as their man to don the blue tights and red cape.

Well, damn, in that case I’d say it’s a lock.

The new 2008 Fall TV season is almost upon us, with the first new show of the season premiering on September 1st. Screen Rant has put together an extensive list of new and returning programs along with their premiere dates, along with descriptions and recommendations.

So what’s up this fall? What are we anticipating, what are we, well… not anticipating?

Fans of Smallville have long been frustrated by the “no flights” portion of producers Al Gough and Miles Millar “no flights, no tights” policy established 7 years ago at the start of the first season. As a matter of fact, as the series has evolved, the fact that Clark (Tom Welling) still does not fly on the show has become pretty ridiculous.

Many other characters on the show have had the ability to fly, including Clark’s cousin Kara (Laura Vandervoort) and other Kryptonians. On toleapsp of that, portraying Clark, who is virtually indestructible as having a fear of heights is at this point ridiculous - especially as we enter Smallville’s 8th (and supposedly final) season.