Some fannish stuff
Gateworld has an interview with Ben Browder, mostly general history and a little on the series he's working on developing (as a writer), a bit on Farscape and Stargate and his semi-acting rivalry with Nathan Fillion.
Also of interest, to Stargate Altantis fans, one of the producers gave a breakdown of what episodes the 6th season might have had, if it had gotten one. Apparently they were far enough along that they had ideas, even if many were ideas that couldn't fit in the previous year. Some potential spoilers, in that any of the elements there might be reused, and they say some might be factors in the SG:A DVD movie. Most interesting is, to me, (spoilers just for Atlantis finale, not for the future) the revelation that they had planned all along to have S5 end with Altantis arriving on Earth. I figured it was tacked on to make more of a definitive 'ending' for the series, but nope, they planned it this way if S6 was ongoing. Now what, exactly, they had planned to do with it there is a little less clear from the descriptions and may even change now that they only have to plot for movies, instead of a whole year. Still, I kinda liked the development as a series-ender, but if it was the new status quo for a series I wouldn't have liked it as much.
This wasn't actually in the episode list I just linked to, but rather the Gateworld Report on it that I'm linking now, that gives a bit more info (since the list of episodes was posted before the finale aired), also potentially spoilery for the same reasons as the list itself.
Oh, and the working title for Vegas was 'CSI: Atlantis'.
Also related: Joseph Mallozzi's "Best 4 SG:A Episodes I never got to write". Somewhat more detailed.
A couple of the (collective) episodes sound kinda cool and I'm a little disappointed we'll never get to see them. Also they had some ideas I've had, too, proving once again, I should TOTALLY write for Stargate! ;) Anyway, I wish I could tap into parallel worlds sometimes just so I could see all these 'what might have beens!'. Or Nathan Fillion as John Crichton in Farscape!)
Speaking of Fillion, remember Doctor Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog? Well, Whedon has said that it will continue in some form, but he's not sure what the form is. It may not be an internet series anymore. I dunno, I'm in as long as it's not a "I'll continue it as a comic book!", because it has to stay a musical! ;)
Anyway, talking with locker_monster the other day, I mentioned off-handedly that they should get Summer Glau in the sequel, and make use of her trained ballerina skills. The idea was good for a few seconds of amusement, but it also stuck with me and came to me this morning before I left for work. And I have a longish (45 minute or so) walk to work, in which it's generally too dark to read, so my mind tends to latch on any old thing and work on it. I came up with the idea of having all of Doctor Horrible's major enemies being Firefly actors. Yes, I know it's unlikely and impractical he'd ever do anything like it, but amusing (to me, which is all that counts).
So, the product of my thinking on the way to work (and a little bit after), behind the cut. It's just silly fluff, but might be worth a chuckle. I present to you: the heroic counterparts to the Evil League of Evil!
I should note that because DHS-a-LB portrayed Captain Hammer as not all that heroic (yeah, he did hero stuff but what also pretty narcissistic at best and outright selfish in ways), I'm trying to continue that tradition, with none of the GTG (Good Team of Good, which probably isn't what they'd be called but handy for acronym purposes) being perfect paragons of goodness, and in fact the whole team is a little bit of a money-making venture with fighting crime a sideline. All names are only tentative as I suck at names in general and it gets even worse when I only have a short period to work on them!
Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer
Of course. He's still 'broken' after his defeat, lost confidence, and the league's had to move on without him, and in fact he's resigned as leader.
Ron Glass as The Grey Mystery
Formerly the "Black Mystery", because he hails from the days when every non-white Hero had to have a name reflecting that status. He was sort of a combination The Shadow and Doctor Strange. He's still a senior member of the GTG, but sticks to only a support role, claiming to be too busy with protecting the world from the forces of the supernatural. The real reason is that, with age, his powers have not just waned, but dwindled to nothingness. His big musical number is on this subject.
The Grey Mystery does not have a costume. Originally he just wiped all specific memory of his appearances, now since he doesn't go into the field, he wears casual clothing.
Adam Baldwin as Lord Smashington
An abomination created of 18th century Mad Science, a created man, who has survived to the present day and become something of a hero. He has incredible strength, and incredible rage. He's also incredibly polite. However, in order to become a hero, he's had to go through anger management therapy. In fact now, the madder he gets, the stronger he gets, and the more polite he gets. "I hope you don't mind, but I need to tear through your wall here." To "Excuse me, I'm afraid, if you don't mind, I am going to have to tear you limb from limb and then crush those limbs into a fine paste. Oh, you do mind? What a sticky wicket. I do hope you'll forgive me." He and the Grey Mystery have a good relationship on account of being the oldest remaining members of the GTG (who have never been considered for leadership).
Lord Smashington wears a top hat and old-style clothing, and looks slightly corpsified. Despite his over-excessive politeness, his actual manners are abominable. He frequents prostitutes, gambles, treats non-heroes (and women heroes) with disrespect in actions. His musical number plays up this contrast as he sings a sweet song politely admitting to horrible things.
Gina Torres as Lady Cassandra Lovelace, Steampunk Detective
Lady Cassandra comes from a parallel timeline, one which a) North America is under the domination of the Great British Empire, b) There is absolutely no shrimp, and c) Most technology is based on steam. Yes, that's why she's a steampunk detective.
Lady Cassandra received the best upbringing and learning, and combined with her photographic memory, she was poised to do great things, but she wanted to become an 'Adventure Hero', and so trained herself to become her World's Greatest Detective. She lead the equivalent of the GTG in her own homeworld. During a case, she and Professor Steam landed on this world and were trapped here, but they quickly adapted and joined the GTG. Their first big case was when she proved that Bad Horse was not a code name for a shadowy underworld figure that nobody had ever seen, but was, in fact, an evil horse. This bit of detective work was mostly a fraud, as there was a Bad Horse on her own world. She is a good detective, In fact, thanks to Professor Steam's invention (used to attempt to find their own reality), she's gotten lazier, and has begun to peer in on nearby worlds where cases were already solved and just copy their solutions. Still, she does enjoy the accolades of being a member of the GTG, and being a trained martial-artist and crossbowist, she goes out on missions.
Lady Lovelace dresses in a leather coat and carries various gadgets developed by Professor Steam, including a pneumatic crossbow, grappling hook, grenade flares. She drives a steam-powered motorcycle with sidecar.
Alan Tudyk as Professor Steam
He is Lady Lovelace's 'gadget man'. Somewhat of a distracted mad-scientist type, he considers himself rival to Doctor Horrible (who doesn't know he exists), and destined to marry Lady Lovelace (who is from the upper class and so does not think much of him at all except as an assistant, a Watson to her Holmes). His inventions range from practical, useful (but usually too loud and producing too much smoke) mechanical
contrivances to huge unweildy devices, to more 'hi-tech' stuff that tends to blow up.
He's been working on a way to get back to their homeworld but so far has only managed
a window that lets them look into other worlds.
Professor Steam wears similar clothing as Doctor Horrible, goggles, lab coat. His is dirtier, though. He also wears a metal protective plate over his heart, you know, so nothing gets stabbed through it.
In addition to a solo song each (Professor Steam's about the virtues of Steam, both as a power source, and in his heart, and Lady Lovelace about The Keen Detective Mind), the two naturally also get a duet (maybe one of those ones where the solo segues into the duet, with Proffessor goes on about his steamy affections and Lady Lovelace's "Keen Detective Mind" completely missing all the signs)
Summer Glau as Ninja Ballerina
Or Ballerina Ninja. She's a ninja, and a ballerina. Both. AT THE SAME TIME.
She is one of the mysteries of the team, and the grim-and-gritty contingent. She does not speak, ever... except to those she is about to kill.
Yes, Kill. Ninja Ballerina is the most killsome of the GTG. Most of the other team members have no _problem_ with killing, and in fact would do it more often if they had a choice, but they're not allowed to deliberately kill anybody except supervillains. Ninja Ballerina breaks this rule constantly, killing any lawbreakers that earn her ire. The Agent considers this 'edgy' and marketable, so allows it to go on, even while the others still have to play by the approved rules. The other GTG members resent her for this, but never call her on it to her face.
Ninja Ballerina dresses in a black Ballerina outfit. She usually uses a katana but is trained in all the ninja weapons, as well as all the ballerina weapons.
Ninja Ballerina gets no song. She does, however, get extended dance sequences (and maybe a killing word as part of another song).
Morena Baccarin as Traveller
She is an alien, stuck on Earth, in the vein of Starfire or Superman. She is the only team member who can fly under her own power, and has other telekinetic abilities.
She doesn't like humans. She's only on Earth at all because she's been exiled here, and chose Earth for her exile because she liked the culture... except, because her world was many light years away, what she knew of Earth's culture was from the 60s and 70s. Now the world has moved on and she doesn't like it. She is still something of an idealist, at heart, but doesn't know if the world is worth saving anymore. Her song plays up this theme and her homesickness.
Traveller dresses more than a little retro, which is actually not that uncommon among her teammates. She probably has some sort of alien features like different skin color.
Jewel Staite as New Girl/Nova Lass
She's not actually the New Girl on the team. Both Ninja Ballerina and the Traveller have joined after she did, but the name has haunted her ever since she first joined. Her name was originally (and technically still is) "Nova Lass", but when she was still a new member of the team, she mentioned this to Lady Lovelace, who pointed out that actually Nova means "New" in Latin, and so her name really means "New Girl". Everybody thereafter started calling her this, even the media. At first she allowed this because she was the newest member of the team, but when the name continued despite other members coming on, she's grown bitter and resentful.
She's also looked down upon because she is the only member of the team who is an "accidental" hero. Her powers come from stumbling on a scientific McGuffin. Everybody else was either created the way they were or went through years of training. She can fire off explosive bursts from her body. The more of her body she uses, the bigger the burst.
Although she started out as, and still projects the aura of, one of the naive, utterly wholesome, young superheroines, she is sick of both the lack of respect she gets and the fact that the rest of the 'heroes' aren't all that heroic in person (in her early days she had a one night fling with Captain Hammer). So she's become disillusioned, and eventually falls for Doctor Horrible, leading her to betray the team for the ELE. (It should be noted that Doctor Horrible does not necessarily have any interest in her, in my mind he's still working on a way to access dark forces and bring back Penny). Her main song is about her fall, of course.
Nova Lass is dressed in the most conventional superheroic outfit, probably something similar to Supergirl, but with different colors.
Sean Maher as The Agent
The Agent is not a superhero at all. He is actually the agent, booking public appearances, connecting with the police, spinning property damage and civilian casualties as being the fault of the villains, and taking his 10% from any earnings of the marketing of any of the other heroes. At least, that's how he started out.
After Captain Hammer's resignation as leader, The Agent realized that if he was actually the leader of the team, he would have more control over the members, and could use his authority to direct the team in ways that make him more money. Some in the public think he is a "Secret Agent", and he enjoys playing this up, because if he can get his own endorsement deals he can make money on his own without relying on them.
The Agent dresses in a very nice suit. He swears quite a bit, which also makes it into his song (just because I think it'd be funny to see Sean Maher swearing).
---
As you can see, I SHOULD TOTALLY write for Doctor Horrible. Whedon, call me. You have my number. Well, you probably don't, but you've probably got people who could find it. ;)
Okay, yeah, it's lame, but hey, it kept me busy for a bit, and that's all I can really hope for.
Edit: Oh yeah, and Doc Horrible fans in Canada, apparently the glitches with Canadian distribution are over and you should be able to reorder from amazon.ca.
Edit2: Although technically my Doctor Horrible ideas isn't a "What I'd Do With..." entry, I'm adding the tag anyway because it's related and it'll make it easier to find it again when I want to reread it. Yes, I like rereading my own ideas, I'm lame.
Also of interest, to Stargate Altantis fans, one of the producers gave a breakdown of what episodes the 6th season might have had, if it had gotten one. Apparently they were far enough along that they had ideas, even if many were ideas that couldn't fit in the previous year. Some potential spoilers, in that any of the elements there might be reused, and they say some might be factors in the SG:A DVD movie. Most interesting is, to me, (spoilers just for Atlantis finale, not for the future) the revelation that they had planned all along to have S5 end with Altantis arriving on Earth. I figured it was tacked on to make more of a definitive 'ending' for the series, but nope, they planned it this way if S6 was ongoing. Now what, exactly, they had planned to do with it there is a little less clear from the descriptions and may even change now that they only have to plot for movies, instead of a whole year. Still, I kinda liked the development as a series-ender, but if it was the new status quo for a series I wouldn't have liked it as much.
This wasn't actually in the episode list I just linked to, but rather the Gateworld Report on it that I'm linking now, that gives a bit more info (since the list of episodes was posted before the finale aired), also potentially spoilery for the same reasons as the list itself.
Oh, and the working title for Vegas was 'CSI: Atlantis'.
Also related: Joseph Mallozzi's "Best 4 SG:A Episodes I never got to write". Somewhat more detailed.
A couple of the (collective) episodes sound kinda cool and I'm a little disappointed we'll never get to see them. Also they had some ideas I've had, too, proving once again, I should TOTALLY write for Stargate! ;) Anyway, I wish I could tap into parallel worlds sometimes just so I could see all these 'what might have beens!'. Or Nathan Fillion as John Crichton in Farscape!)
Speaking of Fillion, remember Doctor Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog? Well, Whedon has said that it will continue in some form, but he's not sure what the form is. It may not be an internet series anymore. I dunno, I'm in as long as it's not a "I'll continue it as a comic book!", because it has to stay a musical! ;)
Anyway, talking with locker_monster the other day, I mentioned off-handedly that they should get Summer Glau in the sequel, and make use of her trained ballerina skills. The idea was good for a few seconds of amusement, but it also stuck with me and came to me this morning before I left for work. And I have a longish (45 minute or so) walk to work, in which it's generally too dark to read, so my mind tends to latch on any old thing and work on it. I came up with the idea of having all of Doctor Horrible's major enemies being Firefly actors. Yes, I know it's unlikely and impractical he'd ever do anything like it, but amusing (to me, which is all that counts).
So, the product of my thinking on the way to work (and a little bit after), behind the cut. It's just silly fluff, but might be worth a chuckle. I present to you: the heroic counterparts to the Evil League of Evil!
I should note that because DHS-a-LB portrayed Captain Hammer as not all that heroic (yeah, he did hero stuff but what also pretty narcissistic at best and outright selfish in ways), I'm trying to continue that tradition, with none of the GTG (Good Team of Good, which probably isn't what they'd be called but handy for acronym purposes) being perfect paragons of goodness, and in fact the whole team is a little bit of a money-making venture with fighting crime a sideline. All names are only tentative as I suck at names in general and it gets even worse when I only have a short period to work on them!
Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer
Of course. He's still 'broken' after his defeat, lost confidence, and the league's had to move on without him, and in fact he's resigned as leader.
Ron Glass as The Grey Mystery
Formerly the "Black Mystery", because he hails from the days when every non-white Hero had to have a name reflecting that status. He was sort of a combination The Shadow and Doctor Strange. He's still a senior member of the GTG, but sticks to only a support role, claiming to be too busy with protecting the world from the forces of the supernatural. The real reason is that, with age, his powers have not just waned, but dwindled to nothingness. His big musical number is on this subject.
The Grey Mystery does not have a costume. Originally he just wiped all specific memory of his appearances, now since he doesn't go into the field, he wears casual clothing.
Adam Baldwin as Lord Smashington
An abomination created of 18th century Mad Science, a created man, who has survived to the present day and become something of a hero. He has incredible strength, and incredible rage. He's also incredibly polite. However, in order to become a hero, he's had to go through anger management therapy. In fact now, the madder he gets, the stronger he gets, and the more polite he gets. "I hope you don't mind, but I need to tear through your wall here." To "Excuse me, I'm afraid, if you don't mind, I am going to have to tear you limb from limb and then crush those limbs into a fine paste. Oh, you do mind? What a sticky wicket. I do hope you'll forgive me." He and the Grey Mystery have a good relationship on account of being the oldest remaining members of the GTG (who have never been considered for leadership).
Lord Smashington wears a top hat and old-style clothing, and looks slightly corpsified. Despite his over-excessive politeness, his actual manners are abominable. He frequents prostitutes, gambles, treats non-heroes (and women heroes) with disrespect in actions. His musical number plays up this contrast as he sings a sweet song politely admitting to horrible things.
Gina Torres as Lady Cassandra Lovelace, Steampunk Detective
Lady Cassandra comes from a parallel timeline, one which a) North America is under the domination of the Great British Empire, b) There is absolutely no shrimp, and c) Most technology is based on steam. Yes, that's why she's a steampunk detective.
Lady Cassandra received the best upbringing and learning, and combined with her photographic memory, she was poised to do great things, but she wanted to become an 'Adventure Hero', and so trained herself to become her World's Greatest Detective. She lead the equivalent of the GTG in her own homeworld. During a case, she and Professor Steam landed on this world and were trapped here, but they quickly adapted and joined the GTG. Their first big case was when she proved that Bad Horse was not a code name for a shadowy underworld figure that nobody had ever seen, but was, in fact, an evil horse. This bit of detective work was mostly a fraud, as there was a Bad Horse on her own world. She is a good detective, In fact, thanks to Professor Steam's invention (used to attempt to find their own reality), she's gotten lazier, and has begun to peer in on nearby worlds where cases were already solved and just copy their solutions. Still, she does enjoy the accolades of being a member of the GTG, and being a trained martial-artist and crossbowist, she goes out on missions.
Lady Lovelace dresses in a leather coat and carries various gadgets developed by Professor Steam, including a pneumatic crossbow, grappling hook, grenade flares. She drives a steam-powered motorcycle with sidecar.
Alan Tudyk as Professor Steam
He is Lady Lovelace's 'gadget man'. Somewhat of a distracted mad-scientist type, he considers himself rival to Doctor Horrible (who doesn't know he exists), and destined to marry Lady Lovelace (who is from the upper class and so does not think much of him at all except as an assistant, a Watson to her Holmes). His inventions range from practical, useful (but usually too loud and producing too much smoke) mechanical
contrivances to huge unweildy devices, to more 'hi-tech' stuff that tends to blow up.
He's been working on a way to get back to their homeworld but so far has only managed
a window that lets them look into other worlds.
Professor Steam wears similar clothing as Doctor Horrible, goggles, lab coat. His is dirtier, though. He also wears a metal protective plate over his heart, you know, so nothing gets stabbed through it.
In addition to a solo song each (Professor Steam's about the virtues of Steam, both as a power source, and in his heart, and Lady Lovelace about The Keen Detective Mind), the two naturally also get a duet (maybe one of those ones where the solo segues into the duet, with Proffessor goes on about his steamy affections and Lady Lovelace's "Keen Detective Mind" completely missing all the signs)
Summer Glau as Ninja Ballerina
Or Ballerina Ninja. She's a ninja, and a ballerina. Both. AT THE SAME TIME.
She is one of the mysteries of the team, and the grim-and-gritty contingent. She does not speak, ever... except to those she is about to kill.
Yes, Kill. Ninja Ballerina is the most killsome of the GTG. Most of the other team members have no _problem_ with killing, and in fact would do it more often if they had a choice, but they're not allowed to deliberately kill anybody except supervillains. Ninja Ballerina breaks this rule constantly, killing any lawbreakers that earn her ire. The Agent considers this 'edgy' and marketable, so allows it to go on, even while the others still have to play by the approved rules. The other GTG members resent her for this, but never call her on it to her face.
Ninja Ballerina dresses in a black Ballerina outfit. She usually uses a katana but is trained in all the ninja weapons, as well as all the ballerina weapons.
Ninja Ballerina gets no song. She does, however, get extended dance sequences (and maybe a killing word as part of another song).
Morena Baccarin as Traveller
She is an alien, stuck on Earth, in the vein of Starfire or Superman. She is the only team member who can fly under her own power, and has other telekinetic abilities.
She doesn't like humans. She's only on Earth at all because she's been exiled here, and chose Earth for her exile because she liked the culture... except, because her world was many light years away, what she knew of Earth's culture was from the 60s and 70s. Now the world has moved on and she doesn't like it. She is still something of an idealist, at heart, but doesn't know if the world is worth saving anymore. Her song plays up this theme and her homesickness.
Traveller dresses more than a little retro, which is actually not that uncommon among her teammates. She probably has some sort of alien features like different skin color.
Jewel Staite as New Girl/Nova Lass
She's not actually the New Girl on the team. Both Ninja Ballerina and the Traveller have joined after she did, but the name has haunted her ever since she first joined. Her name was originally (and technically still is) "Nova Lass", but when she was still a new member of the team, she mentioned this to Lady Lovelace, who pointed out that actually Nova means "New" in Latin, and so her name really means "New Girl". Everybody thereafter started calling her this, even the media. At first she allowed this because she was the newest member of the team, but when the name continued despite other members coming on, she's grown bitter and resentful.
She's also looked down upon because she is the only member of the team who is an "accidental" hero. Her powers come from stumbling on a scientific McGuffin. Everybody else was either created the way they were or went through years of training. She can fire off explosive bursts from her body. The more of her body she uses, the bigger the burst.
Although she started out as, and still projects the aura of, one of the naive, utterly wholesome, young superheroines, she is sick of both the lack of respect she gets and the fact that the rest of the 'heroes' aren't all that heroic in person (in her early days she had a one night fling with Captain Hammer). So she's become disillusioned, and eventually falls for Doctor Horrible, leading her to betray the team for the ELE. (It should be noted that Doctor Horrible does not necessarily have any interest in her, in my mind he's still working on a way to access dark forces and bring back Penny). Her main song is about her fall, of course.
Nova Lass is dressed in the most conventional superheroic outfit, probably something similar to Supergirl, but with different colors.
Sean Maher as The Agent
The Agent is not a superhero at all. He is actually the agent, booking public appearances, connecting with the police, spinning property damage and civilian casualties as being the fault of the villains, and taking his 10% from any earnings of the marketing of any of the other heroes. At least, that's how he started out.
After Captain Hammer's resignation as leader, The Agent realized that if he was actually the leader of the team, he would have more control over the members, and could use his authority to direct the team in ways that make him more money. Some in the public think he is a "Secret Agent", and he enjoys playing this up, because if he can get his own endorsement deals he can make money on his own without relying on them.
The Agent dresses in a very nice suit. He swears quite a bit, which also makes it into his song (just because I think it'd be funny to see Sean Maher swearing).
---
As you can see, I SHOULD TOTALLY write for Doctor Horrible. Whedon, call me. You have my number. Well, you probably don't, but you've probably got people who could find it. ;)
Okay, yeah, it's lame, but hey, it kept me busy for a bit, and that's all I can really hope for.
Edit: Oh yeah, and Doc Horrible fans in Canada, apparently the glitches with Canadian distribution are over and you should be able to reorder from amazon.ca.
Edit2: Although technically my Doctor Horrible ideas isn't a "What I'd Do With..." entry, I'm adding the tag anyway because it's related and it'll make it easier to find it again when I want to reread it. Yes, I like rereading my own ideas, I'm lame.