Whispers, Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 02/01/17


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Sci-fi Spoilerpalooza
By Heather S. Vina

We seem to be losing a lot of greats lately. A sad “rest in peace” for actor John Hurt (the War Doctor, Doctor Who) and actress Mary Tyler Moore. They will be missed by this fan.

On to news … for fans of CW’s Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, and The Flash, EW has up an interview with executive producer Marc Guggenheim about more crossovers and spoilers for all three shows.

In other CW Superhero show news, actor Darren Criss (Glee) has been cast as the lead villain Music Meister in the Supergirl/The Flash musical crossover. EW has a list of the actors slated to sing in the episodes. The musical performers will be Grant Gustin, Melissa Benoist, Jesse L. Martin, Victor Garber (now on Legends of Tomorrow), Carlos Valdes, Jeremy Jordan, and John Barrowman (Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow).

Moving from DC Television to Marvel Television, Fox is officially moving forward with an X-Men show that will be connected to the movies! It will be about two normal human parents who discover that their children have the mutant gene and are then forced to go on the run with them. Movie vet Bryan Singer – who also serves as an executive producer – is directing the pilot episode, CNET has up some details from showrunner Matt Nix.

And finally, great news for fans of TNT’s The Librarians: The show has been renewed for season four!

Arrow: TV Line has up the promotional photos of the episode introducing Talia al Ghul (AKA Lexa Doig). They also have up some spoilers courtesy of co-showrunner Wendy Mericle.

Beyond: TV Line has up a video interview with the cast where they try to explain the realms in their show.

Colony: The Hollywood Reporter has up an interview with Carlton Cuse on the show’s latest casualty.

The Flash: TV Line has up a midseason preview courtesy of co-showrunner Aaron Helbing. They also have up the promotional photos for episode 11, which sees Vibe suiting up and Gypsy arriving.

The Leftovers: The final season finally has an air date and a trailer. The show will premiere on Sunday, April 16.

Legends of Tomorrow: TV Line has up an interview with co-showrunner Phil Klemmer on some of the things to expect in the second half of the season.

Legion: Variety has up an interview with Noah Hawley on how the show came to be. For those interested in the comic book version of the character, IGN has up a nifty little history lesson for you!

The Magicians: The Blastr site has up a video interview with the cast on season two. Executive producer Sera Gamble gave some spoilers to TV Line on season two, with warnings of a death and promises of a musical episode.

Once Upon A Time: The show is teasing a musical episode. Well, I guess, in the Disney movies, they all sing. Why not in the show?

Shadowhunters: Showrunner Todd Slavkin spoke with TV Line about last week’s shocking, non-book-canon death. The show has cast actor Will Tudor (Game of Thrones) as Sebastian, a popular character from the book. Showrunners Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer explained to TV Line how TV Sebastian will differ from Book Sebastian.

Supergirl: TV Line has up the promotional photos for episode ten with the villain Livewire. For fans of the Alex/Maggie romance, EW is spoiling that the couple will be featured for Valentine’s Day.

Stranger Things: Hollywood Life has some scoop for season two, including the news that actor Sean Astin has been cast as Winona Ryder’s character’s boyfriend.

Timeless: Showrunner Eric Kripke is enlisting two of his former Supernatural co-workers to guest star on his show. Actor Misha Collins will be guest-starring as Eliot Ness in the episode “Public Enemy No. 1.” and Jim Beaver will be guest-starring in a recurring role as an NSA agent. The show has also cast General Hospital actor Brandon Barash as Ernest Hemingway.

The Vampire Diaries: Nina Dobrev announced on her Instragram that she will be returning for the series finale as Elena.

The Walking Dead: EW has up an interview with Andrew Lincoln on the show. They also have one up with Danai Guria. Executive Producer Scott Gimple gave EW a bit of a preview for the new season.

Over at E!Online, the latest Spoiler Room has spoilers on shows Supernatural, Timeless, The Flash, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Legends of Tomorrow, and Colony.

At TV Line, Ask Ausiello has spoilers on shows The Leftovers, Grimm, The 100, Supergirl, and Zoo.


Supernatural (Thursday nights, 8pm, CW)
By Paula R. Stiles

Check out my Patreon page. Help me keep this column going, pay Heather, and start doing Supernatural reviews again.

It’s official! The show has been renewed for a 13th season. This may well be (by a couple of weeks) the earliest renewal Supernatural has ever received.

The show has moved to 8pm.

The Season 12 line-up (23 episodes) so far: “Keep Calm and Carry On” (12.01) official photos and press release; “Mamma Mia” (12.02) synopsis and photos; “The Foundry” (12.03) synopsis, official photos, sneak peek, and promo; “American Nightmare” (12.04) synopsis, official photos and promo; “The One You’ve Been Waiting For” (12.05) synopsis, promo and set photos; “Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox” (12.06) synopsis, photos and promo; “Rock Never Dies” (12.07) synopsis, photos and promo; “LOTUS” (12.08) synopsis, photos and promo; “First Blood” (12.09) synopsis, photos, promo and sneak peek, as well as an extended promo; “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets” (12.10) (this is the one with Alicia Witt) synopsis, photos and promo; “Regarding Dean” (12.11) tech survey card, synopsis and photo; “Stuck in the Middle (With You) (12.12) tech survey card, synopsis and photo (this one’s directed by Richard Speight Jr.); “Family Feud” (12.13); “The Raid” (12.14) tech survey card; “Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell” (12.15) tech survey card; and “Unnamed Episode” (12.16) tech card.

The synopsis for “Stuck in the Middle with You” (12.12) is up:

RICHARD SPEIGHT JR. DIRECTS – Mary (guest star Samantha Smith) asks Sam (Jared Padalecki), Dean (Jensen Ackles) and Castiel (Misha Collins) for help on a case she’s working but neglects to mention the British Men of Letters are involved. When Mary is double crossed, everything is revealed. Richard Speight Jr directed the episode written by Davy Perez (#1212). Original airdate 2/16/2107.

According to the promo, Ian Tracey is returning in this week’s episode, “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets” (12.10), though apparently as a different (angelic/Grigoric?) character than his previous one, Lee Daniels (who later died offscreen).

EW teased that Lucifer’s storyline will be continued with his unborn child. Since his character apparently isn’t already played out enough.

There was a new con in Houston this past weekend.

Jensen Ackles made a quick video and group acceptance speech from the crew on the set (a motel) for the show’s PCA Award. He accidentally showed the actor who plays Mick (from the LoL) standing right behind him. Whoops, inadvertent spoiler.

Ratings for the show’s return with “First Blood” (12.09) remained steady in demo at 0.6/2 and 1.72 million, despite the move to 8pm.


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11 thoughts on “Whispers, Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 02/01/17”

  1. I meant your particular comment on how the show sometimes shorthands the serious issue of Castiel’s “love” for Dean and makes it look sexual when it is metaphysical for Castiel: Dean has become his ‘reason’ for being.

    Old Catholic Catechism: what is my purpose? My purpose is to know God, to love Him and to serve Him. (THAT spells out how Castiel relates imo; for Dean, Castiel is someone who backed him and suffered for it and needs to be protected in this world. I don’t think he ever wants Castiel to become cynical.

  2. I can’t believe it: I was rewatching Reading is Fundamental and just realized that the actor who played Chester the (Possible) Molester in Plush and Inias the Angel (who was one angel I really wanted them to bring back, I liked him and his gentle nature) in RIF is the one and the same actor. It had to be the make-up, he is SO icky as Chester and SO cute as Inias.

    BTW I was reading on IMDB.com re the Destiel issue and how the script for Lily Sunder was pretty slashy: I remember in Don’t Call Me Shurley how Metatron described the sheer JOY angels felt in the presence of God. How they could not do ANYTHING except love him. I remember ‘way back when I started hanging around here you explained the difference between LOVE and how Castiel feels about Dean, the way he put his love for God onto Dean. You explained it quite well, it is otherwordly. (BTW from the show I liked Castiel’s ‘past’ vessel but I don’t think the idea of him being gender-fluid is something that the show should put out there. I ‘dread’ the idea someday they will do an episode which has Castiel temporarily in a female vessel for some wacky reason (has to get somewhere quick to save Sam and Dean?) and Dean and Cas hit the sheets, then Novak/Castiel shows up, Dean is squicked, and Castiel confused (it’s still me); they did that on Star Trek: TNG in which some being was in a guy (and Beverly the doctor’s lover) and then he was murdered but they saved the symbiote (can’t remember the name of the symbiote race, I hope you know what I mean, they were featured on another Star Trek series) and put him Will Riker temporarily while his own host was being brought to them; “Will” and Beverly had an affair, the host showed up, it was a very attractive woman who wanted to pick up where they left off but Bev was squicked and the symbiote/host said, your race is very strange. ANYWAY, the Dean and Castiel vibes were like that for me.

    I do like Alicia Witt more than you do but I don’t get the bit with her eye. (BTW I also loved Dean asking Lily, Are You DONE? and she said Vengeance is all I have and he pulled out his machete and said Wrong Answer, moving to flank Castiel.

    Why ‘does’ the show write slash and then not see what they are doing? Are they so ‘sure’ they are writing Dean as het? Now Castiel would be truly bisexual because I don’t think he ‘sees’ the form, I think he can see souls and knows what somebody really look like.

    1. A mystical experience is tough to describe to the outside observer. As I’ve said in the past, use the term “religous ecstasy” and everybody’s mind immediately goes to the word “orgasm.”

      I wonder if the main disconnect between Jensen Ackles and the Destiel fans is one of the central metaphor for the relationship. Ackles doesn’t seem to have any problem with playing these fraught scenes, or making them slashy. I think he just plays Dean’s perception of them as familial not sexual because to him, playing it familial for Dean gives it more emotional depth.

      This actually makes sense. For Dean, sex is fun and a way to keep things light. Family is a lot more profound and serious. For Castiel (or, it appears, any angel), that intensity looks a lot like romantic obsession. It’s still “a profound bond” on both sides. It’s just how they express its subtext.

      Ackles had the same attitude about Dean playing off Amara. And Dean doesn’t actually figure out how to get through to Amara until he approaches her from the viewpoint of a betrayed family member rather than a lover.

      LOL! about that TNG episode “The Host.” The first time it aired, my mom and I were watching it and one of our cats, Butterscotch, happened to be hacking up half a rat behind the TV at the moment where we find out the guy is a slug. We were laughing at the appropriateness and grossed out at the same time. She was totally unperturbed by our yelling at her, of course.

      Took me a long time to get over that image while watching Deep Space Nine.

  3. I just thought, where will people link to videos like the preview that was not on the show last night? I don’t how to find things like that on youtube.com.

  4. What the hooey! The IMDB.com message boards are shutting down? Where will I get your SPN recaps?

    This is really bad.

    OF course there were lots of threats and they had to be worried about that. But the message boards is where I go to read about shows.

    Do you ever go to previouslytv.com?

    1. I’m probably going to migrate the Official threads over here. I’ll do a live-blog/recap, as usual, and then do a review a day or so afterward.

  5. I also am an Ian Tracey fan. He was the nicest hunter they had run into by that time (I liked Cesar but not so much Jesse but I ‘did’ realize Jesse had a horrible issue — I really ‘felt’ how much Jesse had loved his brother Matt and how horrible Matt’s death was) and the most grounded.

    I did like Chrissy a lot more than you did (my daughter and I had a ‘fraught’ teen-year relationship so I learned to overlook a lot of things that make me grind my teeth if you know what I mean).

  6. I also watched the first episode of The Magicians and could NOT get into Quentin, the supposed hero. Just ‘too’ whiny for me.

    But I ‘did’ like Elliot, the world-weary bisexual (his sexuality is a big part of him and I like that he is sexual without being a pushy jerk) and the idea he is now married to a Filory girl, has to be a ‘good’ husband to her, AND she is a nice person who is giving him good advice makes me happy.

    Last night’s episode has Marin from the SPN’s Season 7 (The Bourne-Again Identity) and woman-possessed-by-Crowley from premiere Season 10 AND Rick Worthy my favorite Vampire from Season 6…made me happy.

    I went onto IMDB.com re The Magicians and ‘everybody’ was commenting who unlikable most of the characters are. I get that, I do; I did not watch Season 1 due to the just JERK aspects of the characters; went to wikipedia.com and they even discuss THERE how unlikable the characters are. Very strange. I wonder ‘why’ the author wrote the characters that way, every time he gives them a choice they choice douche.

  7. I watched Legends of Tomorrow last night and could not get into what was going on; I stopped watching when Arthur Darville left the show (was he doing something else and ‘had’ to be written out or was this a storyline decision?) and even though he is back as “Phil” and doesn’t remember being “Rip” he is such a different character I miss Rip.

    I enjoyed The Magicians (I like Eliot, the new King of Filory the best) and am SO stoked that The Expanse comes back tonight.

    Looking forward to Lily Sunder Regrets; I like Alicia Witt and the edge she brings to her characters.

    1. I miss Rip, too, but liked last night’s LoT episode better than I expected. I wasn’t expecting it to be from the villains’ point of view. I don’t like any of those characters, but it was fun to see them humanized a bit.

      Really disliked the two eps I saw of The Magicians. Am not likely to try it ever again.

      Not a fan of Alicia Witt. Huge fan of Ian Tracey, though, so we’ll see.

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