Now, don't fret, faithful readers: just because there may not be a lot of "action" on the MainPage of SciFiHistory.Net doesn't mean I've forgotten about this space.  To the contrary, it usually means that either my regular life duties have kept me away from daily posts or (more likely) I'm dabbling heavily behind the scenes trying to get the day-by-day stuff up and running.  In case you've missed it, I've spent a wealth of time the last week or so updating daily citations, and this ends up taking much more time than I ever thought it would as an entertainment blogger.

Today's evidence: A For Andromeda is now part of the daily listings.

​Honestly, I've never even heard of this one before -- a BBC SciFi program about alien contact with Earth -- from the early 1960's, and as soon as I did I started digging modestly into it.  The first season was only seven episodes, and then there's a second season I haven't even looked into yet.  Also it looks like in 2006 there was a motion picture or telefilm 'updating' that involved Tom Hardy (of all folks!), so that's even more I have to familiarize myself with regarding this new franchise.  And that's what I mean: every time I turn around I'm finding more and more I'd like to feature on our little offramp of the Information Superhighway!

In any event, Google and check it out, if you're interested.

​As always, thanks for reading ... and live long and prosper!

I've always believed that it's important to celebrate achievements: after all, that's really the entire premise behind my hatching SciFiHistory.Net in its current format.

​As I mentioned in a relatively recent post, my long-term goal has always been to feature 100 individual citations (at least) for each calendar day.  Now, that'll take some time as I've really only been at this for a few short years, but I'd be a fool if I didn't give the site a ShoutOut when it deserves one ... and we've hit another benchmark worth celebrating.

​Namely: February 3rd is our second day to reach the 50-Plus citation mark, so I've just updated the appropriate headers for both the February page as well as the individual Feb. 3rd page.

​Take a gander at it right here, if you're so inclined ... and thanks for reading!

When does too much of a good thing become a bad thing?  And what exactly IS too much of a bad thing?!

​The franchise that apparently will never end -- Sharknado -- continues to lumber on, as today I received an email announcing that Sharknado 5 has begun preparations.  In all honesty, I've seen the first two of these flicks, and -- because I was raised on a healthy diet of zany SciFi features back in the days of wired cable services -- I have absolutely no problem with anyone calling them "guilty pleasures."  Films like this were never about plot: they're all about exploiting the zaniness of the premise, and everyone aboard seems to play it all 'tongue-in-cheek.'

​Still, kudos for Syfy for -- ahem -- knowing a good thing when they see it, and I'm happy to copy and paste the important sections of the press release for posterity's sake below.  Happy reading!

SYFY AND THE ASYLUM ANNOUNCE SHARKNADO 5 
IS GOING FIN-TERNATIONAL
 
-  Ian Ziering and Tara Reid Return to Star in Worldwide Production -
 
NEW YORK, NY - February 2, 2017 - Syfy and The Asylum announced today that Ian Ziering and Tara Reid will again star in SHARKNADO 5 (working title), reprising their roles as shark-fighting heroes Fin Shepard and April Wexler. Principal photography commenced today, February 2, in Bulgaria. The latest film in the hit global franchise, SHARKNADO 5 features the return of original cast member Cassie Scerbo as Nova, a bartender turned badass Sharknado fighter.
 
SHARKNADO 5, which sees the deadly weather phenomenon of shark-infested storms bombard cities around the world, will film in more than 5 countries, including the UK and Australia. Anthony C. Ferrante, who directed the first four films, is back to helm this latest installment, based on a script by Scotty Mullen. 
 
The original 2013 SHARKNADO film, which introduced a cyclone depositing man-eating sharks on the citizens of Los Angeles, became a worldwide phenomenon and spawned a pop culture franchise. In SHARKNADO 2: THE SECOND ONE, New York City was the target of the disaster, and in SHARKNADO 3: OH HELL NO!, a mega-sharknado made its way down the "Feast Coast" from Washington, D.C. to Florida. In the most recent installment, SHARKNADO: THE 4TH AWAKENS, the shark-infested storms went national. The film ended with the Eiffel Tower ripping away from Paris and crashing down on Niagara Falls - a chilling indication that no one in the world is safe!
 
Now, in SHARKNADO 5, with much of North America lying in ruins, the rest of the world braces for the inevitable - a global sharknado. Fin Shepard and his family must put a stop to this disaster before Earth is completely obliterated.
 
About Syfy
Syfy is a media destination for imagination-based entertainment. With year round acclaimed original series, events, blockbuster movies, classic science fiction and fantasy programming, a dynamic Web site (www.Syfy.com), and a portfolio of adjacent business (Syfy Ventures), Syfy is a passport to limitless possibilities. Originally launched in 1992 as SCI FI Channel, and currently in 96 million homes, Syfy is a network owned by NBCUniversal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies. NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation.
 
About The Asylum
The Asylum is one of the world's leading brand-oriented motion picture and television studios. With a focus on high-concept, market-driven entertainment, like the SHARKNADO franchise and the popular Z NATION television series, The Asylum finances, produces and releases 25 films per year through its direct pipeline to the nation's top retailers and its network of international partners. Since its founding in 1997, The Asylum has released more than 500 films and has built a library of over 200 original productions, including top-rated movie premieres for Syfy, Lifetime, and Animal Planet networks. In addition, The Asylum has begun production on Season 4 of Syfy's highest-rated scripted show, Z NATION, a critically-acclaimed action-horror series.

Regular readers of SciFiHistory.Net have probably noticed that I don't do all that many "In Memoriam" features.  My personal philosophy regarding them is that I feel that -- as a blogger and an individual who celebrates a specific genre of the arts -- I should be celebrating the works of artisans and craftsmen and women while they 're alive: waiting until they've passed on to do some retrospective always 'feels' kinda/sorta flat to me.  I've grown more aware of how much folks respect posts of such a nature, and I do try to reflect in such a way when and if the mood strikes.

​The recent passing of the legendary John Hurt certainly caught my eye, and I wanted to offer up a few humble words on the man, largely because he's made such an impact on the realm of Science Fiction even though it certainly wasn't his 'mainstay' of work.

​Like most regular folks, John Hurt came into my life as the guy who really put the whole Alien franchise in dramatic motion.  Ridley Scott's seminal film is arguably as much horror as it is SciFi, and perhaps that's most owed to Hurt's brief portrayal of the ill-fated Kane from the 1979 film.  In fact, one could argue that Kane as a metaphor is precisely what that franchise is all about: "we came, we saw, and we found ourselves inferior so we died."  Tragic though it may be and as defeatist as it may sound, Kane's demise is often what most of us feel is waiting for mankind when we venture into the stars.

​As is often the case with many of the truly great actors of his or her generation, Hurt's resume is filled with performance after performance investigating mankind's flawed nature ... and perhaps even a few non-human ones.  He voiced Aragorn in the animated The Lord of the Rings (1978), an adaptation fans are still angry was never fully realized.  He played Jesus himself in Mel Brooks' wacky The History of the World: Part 1 (1981), yet another incomplete epic unless the elder storyteller decides to actually do a follow-up.  And then there's 1984 (1984), Spaceball (1987), Roger Corman's Frankenstein Unbound (1990), Contact (1997), the Hellboy franchise, and V For Vendetta (2005).

​(For those uninformed, yes, I'm pretty much mentioning only genre works as this is, principally, a genre website!)

Of course, there's more -- much more, indeed -- but methinks you get the point: Hurt's career was filled with the kind of happy, sad, enlightened, and tortured moments that make up this fool's game we call 'life.'  'Existence.'  'Reality.'  He was a man who lived big onscreen perhaps to give back to those of us who couldn't do the same, and he leaves behind a legacy of work that I believe will continue to inspire long after his memorials end.

​Naturally, I'd be a fool if I didn't give an appreciable nod to his take on Doctor Who, debatably one of the oldest, dearest, and most impactful creations for televised Science Fiction and beyond.  In "The Day of the Doctor," "The Night of the Doctor," and "The Name of the Doctor," the actor gave special credence to even that fabled character's darkest times, and he showed us in his own impressionable way that light can never be forever snuffed out by the blackness, no matter how grave, no matter how dire, no matter how powerful it may seem.  Unlike suffering Kane's end, how fitting it was that -- near the end of Hurt's life -- he was given the chance to underscore how a life can transcend the mere 'ticking of the clock' to be something vastly more important, vastly more interesting, and vastly more impactful that we ever imagined.

​He's gone now -- God rest his soul -- and Hurt will indeed be missed; but we'll always have the visual memories he left his audiences to cheer him onward and upward.

Ach.  I really do maintain a bizarre love/hate relationship with anime.  I've seen enough of it to know that it interests me stylistically, but I haven't seen enough of it to declare myself a serious connoisseur of it.  My main issue with it has been that almost everything I've watched has been "strongly recommended" to me by folks professing to live and die for Japanese animation; but an awful lot of what's come my way just honestly hasn't impressed me all that much.  Still, I persevere ...

​In any event, the Superbowl trailer for the upcoming Ghost In The Shell (2017) adaptation has ended up on the Information Superhighway today, so I took a gander more out of curiosity than anything else.  This is only a 30-second sneak (I suspect there's more as this doesn't really offer much in the way of excitement to the uninterested viewers), and it's the usual 'flash in the pan' editing one can expect from today's 7-second-attention-span consumers.

​Interestingly enough, the original Ghost is one of those super-super-popular anime properties I just never 'got.'  Interesting idea.  Interesting execution.  But at the end of it all I was just left 'meh.'  Also, I know that there was some controversy involving Scarlett Johansson's casting (in case you missed it, this is 'Japan' and she's not exactly Japanese nor could she pull it off in a police line-up), but I tend not to invest too much time in fanboy politics as I rarely if ever find myself in agreement with the Comic Con crowd.

​Check out the visuals below, my friends.
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As always, thanks for reading ... and live long and prosper!