Heroes100: A Q&A with Peter Llewellyn, Campaign Instigator

On saturday Feb 6th 2010, a #SaveHeroes twitter campaign became successful when it went on to be one of the top 10 most trended topics worldwide due to the efforts of Mastermind Peter Llewellyn and the love and dedication of hundreds of Heroes fans on twitter.

Another such campaign has been set for March 6th 2010 and in order to raise awareness, the InsideTrekker has conducted a Q&A with the campaign's instigator.

Pete lets start at the beginning, SaveHeroes/SaveHeroesSaturday, that was a success!

PL Thanks Nat, yes it was an amazing achievement, the Heroes fans were giants that day they really came through when it mattered.

Were you surprised at that?

PL Well I always thought we could get saveheroes to trend but I didn't think it would be so hard! The Heroes fans really do punch above their weight!

So Why not do another saveheroes campaign?

PL: Well Nat It crossed my mind, but saveheroes was reactionary, we reacted to the shock news that Heroes might be cancelled and it was an ad-hock campaign, it really just fell into place at the right time.

What do you mean by that?

PL: Nat The campaign pretty much happened by itself after seeing the Less than Four blog on the 12th January, I wrote my letter & signed the petitions but I thought is this it? Is this all I can do? I said to Sheindie what are Sarmy doing? She replied "What are YOU doing!?'' The answer came quickly as I got on twitter people were tweeting the petition they wanted to be heard, the idea of a campaign came then.

How did you set up the campaign?

PL: I was tweeting save #Heroes as two words but I realised that only the heroes was showing up in a search so I put them together & bingo! SaveHeroes was born! I then started to add saveheroes to my tweets & people copied it!

So how did it get to be a campaign?

PL: Well Nat, I was having a chat with Sara Schaller & I said we need to get more people to tweet this preferably at the same time to get it noticed! I realised that by putting it in as a search & saving it I could ReTweet abt 20-25 tweets at a time & I thought if 20 or 30 people did that then it would be 750 tweets per minute!

So why did you choose February 6th to do the first campaign?

PL: Well I had the conversation with Sara on the 27th January. Initially I was going to do the campaign on the 9th Feb the day after the last episode of Heroes was screened but I thought that by having it before it might encourage people to watch the last episode, so we decided that Saturday Feb 6 was best! It just seemed so right SaveheroesSaturday the 6th!

And we now know it Trended worldwide!

PL: Indeed it did Nat, but it was much, much harder than I thought, but when it got on the TT list the tweets went crazy! It was a beautiful thing to see!

And yet you don't want to repeat it?

PL: Quite right Nat, the saveheroes campaign did its job we all learned lessons from it but I think it was a one shot deal. I thought about doing it again but an interview I heard on the radio by Ricky Gervais gave me the inspiration to set a goal for Heroes.

Tell me more..

PL: Well He said that when a show gets 100 episodes in the USA it gets syndicated & all the networks can carry the show & repeat it on & off every 6 months etc, So I thought Yup that's what is needed for Heroes.

Hence the Heroes100?

PL: Exactly Nat, It's catchy you can play with words around it for instance Heroes100 -100% heroes! & its a goal for us to achieve, why settle for a lame few episodes to finish Heroes off when we want the show to continue?

But the ratings have been poor for Heroes

PL: Yes Nat there's no getting away from that, but I think if the shows creators bring in some new sexy young actors & get back to the shows original ethos of ordinary people doing extraordinary things then we'll be on the right track!

So do you think Heroes100 will work as a concept?

PL: Yes Nat I think its captured the fans imagination, there are about 29 Heroes100 accounts set up on Twitter in the last couple of days, people are talking about it, they are hungry for Heroes they love the show, we all do!

Where do you see Heroes100 going then?

PL:Well the sky is the limit, this time round everyone wants to help, Lucy Baker has designed the Twibbon & Is doing posters, Sara Schaller has been amazing at spreading the word.. it was her idea to have Heroes100Saturday on the 6th March, exactly 1 month after SaveHeroes, we need to build a Mega- Campaign that will Trend big on Twitter, and we can encourage the letter writing to NBC, we can have more petitions as a movement Heroes100 will have a loud voice on Twitter and FaceBook So at least the fans will be heard.

So how are you going to run this campaign?

PL: Nat this time around I know we need to get loads more tweets, so I've been asking people to get Heroes100 twitter accounts, the reason being so many people went into twitterjail last time so we need to avoid that problem, but also importantly some people were worried about spamming their followers, this alleviates that problem! With a Heroes100 twitter account you can just follow the people who want to help us and will relish being spammed to! We will also be tweeting the virtues of buying a legal download of Heroes and buying the box sets etc! The main thing we will do is spam @NBC so they receive thousands of tweets WE WILL BE HEARD!

And if NBC give us another season?

PL: WE promise to plug Heroes big time, we will have a huge campaign to get more people to watch the show, Heroes can recover it just needs the true fans behind it supporting it.

Well thanks Pete for explaining that to us good luck with your endeavour!

PL: Thank you for giving me the chance to explain about Heroes100 and Heroes100Saturday 6th March.

Michael Trucco V Casting News

I know I don't often blog about V (actually this would be my first time) but there is some casting news that I thought would interest some of you.

Michael Trucco who played Cylon Sam Anders on Battlestar Galactica will play the mysterious John May, the leader of the Fifth Column resitance movement on the show, which is an Alien underground movement.

As of now, he will appear in one episode set to air on April 13.

I liked Trucco as Sam Anders on BSG and I'm looking forward to see what he will bring to V. If it's good, I hope we'll see more of him.

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Doctor Who Series 5 Press Release

Apparently Radio Free Skaro has obtained the Doctor Who Series 5 Press release.

A new era of Doctor Who begins in Spring 2010. This latest series of the BBCs flagship drama programme sees Matt Smiths debut as the new, Eleventh incarnation of the famous Time Lord alongside a new travelling companion, the enigmatic Amy Pond (Karen Gillan).

Together they explore 16th century Venice, France during the 1890s and the United Kingdom in the far future, now an entire nation floating in space.

As always, wherever the Doctor goes, his oldest enemies are never far behind – the Daleks are hatching a new master plan from the heart of war-torn London in the 1940s. But they are not the only strange creatures the Doctor and Amy must face – there are also alien vampires. humanoid reptiles, old enemies such as the Weeping Angels, a Star Whale, and a silent menace that follows Amy and the Doctor around wherever they go…

As well, it seems that the first episode will be 60 minutes long. There is still no diffusion date announced as of yet.

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The Awesomeness of Avatar

2009 was an amazing year for Science-Fiction movies.

We’ve had District 9, Star Trek, Moon (which deserves its own post) and Avatar. All fantastic Sci-Fi films. For me, 3 of those 4 were absolutely amazing – Star trek, Moon and Avatar. Though I think District 9 does boast an interesting story and amazing special effects for a film that had less budget money than most films, I didn’t get drawn into it unfortunately.

But I digress.

I’m here to actually talk about the awesomeness of Avatar which I’ve seen twice as of today.

James Cameron has managed to bring the fictional world of Pandora to life through amazing special effects that look lifelike. The believability factor of these special effects was one of my personnal fears. I know CGI has come a long way in the past 10 years but from what I had seen in the trailers and in pictures, I wasn’t convinced by Avatar’s CGI (seriously, the movie trailers never did justice to the movie), and I felt they would never be able to convince me that these CGI creatures were flesh and blood when compared to the real life actors. I have to say I was agreeably surprised that they stood up well to their human counterparts in the finished movie! The expressions were as lifelike as possible. I noticed even the movements of the nose as expressions changed. It’s all fascinating stuff in my humble opinion.

The world of Avatar is a fully realized world with its own wildlife, creatures, atmosphere and rituals. Just thinking about how everything was rendered so realistically has my mind swimming with wonder. The seeds of the spirit tree (I’m drawing a blank here) were so beautiful, and the way they floated everywhere looked so real that I just stood agape at the sheer magnificence of it all. I even had the feeling that the bugs were real and just buzzing in front of me (pesky little things Haha). The attention to details was incredible - James Cameron and team did an incredible job.

At the heart of the story is a love story but Avatar also conveys important messages. The most important one is that we are destroying our planet and that there is beauty and wonder in nature. As for the story itself, the conquest of other lands and cultures for another’s own greedy benefit has existed ever since the World was born. It’s not just a parallel story for the white man coming to take the land away from the native Indians. The Romans did the same, the Vikings did the same. It’s all about conquest. That’s how we are that’s who we are. But in the process, other cultures are destroyed and irrevocably lost. It’s also a tale of resistance where everyone thinks their way is better. Okay, in Avatar, it’s mostly about greed and money which is what drives the destruction of the Rain Forest nowadays right?

Even though one is amazed by the technology and CGI displayed on the screen in Avatar, we must not forget the actors’ performances in the movie. Underneath the artificial characters, there are real flesh and blood actors that give their best performances to the Na’vi.

Sam Worthington shines in the movie and he is subdued as the human Jake Sully but also poignant and sweet. As his Na’vi self he is electric and energetic and touching. Zoe Saldana is strong and vulnerable as Neytiri and through her eyes, as well as those of Jake, we see the beauty of Pandora. I found myself believing in all of the performances onscreen. Even Steven Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch I hated with a passion (which in itself is good, since he’s supposed to elicit that feeling of hatred in the viewers). Everyone’s performance was good, no one was over the top or bad. Sigourney Weaver was great as Dr. Grace Augustine and it was definitely great to see her. However I’m not too certain about having a character smoke on screen, in 2154 you’d think cigarette would be gone, but I suppose that it shows her as a non-conformist rebel.

Avatar has definitely touched many people as evidenced by the repeat attendance of movie goers and the fact that it has now surpassed Titanic as the number one grossing movie of all time (whether it’s the story, the message or the special effects is personal to each and everyone I guess). Plus it has garnered an impressive 9 Oscar nominations (falling short of Titanic’s 14 however) including Best Picture (so has District 9 by the way). The movie has been so popular that James Cameron is now considering Avatar 2 ahead of the long awaited Battle Angel.

I loved Avatar, and now I find myself waiting feverishly for the DVD/BluRay to come out and hoping that the release will include the 3D version of the movie, much like Coraline did. I'm really happy to see that the Science-Fiction genre is in such a healthy productive state these days and that finally, it is getting proper recognition everywhere.

But I will end this post on a question. What did YOU think of Avatar?

The Silurians Officially in Series 5 of Doctor Who

A British actress by the name of Neve McIntosh has given a long interview to the Perthshire Advertiser in which she talks about her role as a Silurian - actually as 2 Silurians since she plays twins - on Doctor Who.

She also talks about Matt Smith and says:

“I think he’s going to be really good, the best yet out of the new guys.
“The stories have got a bit darker. I play twins, and they’re big lizardwarrior women.
“They’re one of the Silurian tribes that have been undisturbed under the earth. And of course we get disturbed.
“It’s the first time I’ve worn prosthetics but I’m still recognisable if you know me well enough.
“But there’ll probably be lots of people going, ‘Who the hell is that?’”

Below is a picture of a Silurian taken while filming a while back.
This account, as well as the above picture, thus confirms the presence of the Classic Doctor Who monster that never made an appearance during the RTD era.

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Brent Spiner in The Questor Tapes?

Could we possibly see Brent Spiner in another Android role? That is the question, and the answer may disappoint certain people. It all has to do with the news concerning an old Sci-Fi television movie called The Questor Tapes.

One of Gene Roddenberry's many Sci-Fi creations (Andromeda, Earth Final Conflict and of course Star Trek), The Questor Tapes aired in 1974 and starred Robert Foxworth.

About three weeks ago, Roddenberry Productions announced that it will be brought back to life in the form of a new pilot following a deal with Imagine Entertainment.

The character of Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation was based on the android of The Questor Tapes, and Rod Roddenberry (Gene's son) has expressed his desire to see Brent Spiner play the android on the new show.

However, it seems that the actor has shown no interest in the project, and his involvement on the show could simply be that of a guest spot or a recurring role.

Please go here to read the full story.

Save Heroes, Save the World!!

Today is the last Heroes episode of the season.

I hope it's not the last Heroes episode ever.

Despite the fact that Heroes's ratings are not what they used to be, the show continues to be the most downloaded and streamed out there, clearly indicating that people still love it and want to see it. Overseas transmission and DVD sales are also big money makers for NBC.

But today, we are worried that our beloved show wont come back.

We all know that NBC has done a lousy job at promoting Heroes, and we all know that something's not right with their decision making lately (the horrible Jay Leno Hour at 10pm anyone - cancelled thank GOD but is it too late to repair the dammage?). They also almost cancelled Chuck for Pete's sake! The fact that our beloved show is in the hands of a clearly incompetent network is scary but I keep hoping that they will see the light and at least renew it for a fifth season, even if it's the final one, so that the story can be wrapped up properly.

This past season has been better than seasons 2 or 3 but it still had it's problems. They killed a beloved character (Nathan) for good, and it seems the actor was not treated correctly by the network (or producers - details are very sketchy). We barely saw Mohinder and Tracy, Sylar has embarked on another redemption ark and Claire still annoys me but she was less so this season. New characters were added then dropped, the Carnival was a good idea at first but I feel it may have gone nowhere and Samuel took his sweet time to become a big bad. However, the writers have done their best to be more consistent in their writing, which was refreshing, and I salute their efforts. Even dialogues were more meaningful this season.

This past saturday, die hard fans of Heroes banded together on twitter to make #SaveHeroes a worldwide trend in order to show our love and support for the show. And it worked. I just hope that NBC saw that and that they will have the good sense to respect us and keep the show on for at least another year.

Today, I hope the fans will join me on twitter in hashtagging Heroes and SaveHeroes in support of our show.

Help Us Save Heroes!!!

Doctor Who and Harry Potter Concept Art Online!!

OMG this morning is so exciting!!

I just saw that Doctor Who and Torchwood concept artist Peter McKinstry (who also worked on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the upcoming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) has his own website where he has graced us with incredible art concepts!!!

Just feast your eyes on some of these babies!!

Go here to view Peter McKinstry's Glorious website!

Official: Neil Gaiman Confirms Writing an Episode of Doctor Who

The awesome news was confirmed by Neil Gaiman himself this weekend on the SFX Magazine website. He will be writing an episode of Doctor Who for Matt Smith's second season (seems we can be sure to assume that Doctor Eleven will NOT meet his demise by the end of Series 5).

I am not all that familiar with Neil Gaiman's work (he wrote the Sandman graphic novel though I never read it) but I know many are and this is certainly VERY exciting news for may fantasy and sci-fi lovers out there.

Go here to read the announcement.

Doctor Who to have Two Companions or Three!

Seems that not only will the Eleventh Doctor (played by Matt Smith) travel with known companion Amy Pond (played by Karen Gillan) but he will also have another companion in the form of Amy's own fiancee, a chap named Rory Williams (played by Arthur Darvill).

The Daily Star reports that:

He (The Doctor) is completely unaware she’s actually a stripogram girl. But the newly-regenerated Doc whisks her away in his police box and the pair are even seen sharing a snog.

It’s only later he discovers Amy was about to marry fiancé Rory Williams, played by Arthur Darvill, 27. Horrified he has split them up, he whizzes back to Earth, gatecrashes the lad’s stag do and bundles him into the Tardis

What is more, they hint that a third companion will join the group later in the series. My money is on River Song.

This will be a very crowded Tardis but it's not unusual for the Doctor to be accompanied by many companions at once. There was a time when the 5th Doctor was accompanied by Nyssa, Tegan and Aldric.

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The first three official episode titles of Doctor Who Series 5 are:

1-The Eleventh Hour, by Steven Moffat (a good play on the Doctor's 11th incarnation)

2-The Beast Below, by Steven Moffat

3-Victory of the Daleks, by Mark Gatiss

The titles were officially confirmed in the latest Doctor Who magazine.


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Happy Birthday Brent Spiner!

Turning 61 today is actor Brent Spiner who played the beloved android Data for many years on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I met Mr. Spiner briefly at the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas last August but I never got around to talk about it here until now.

He was an absolute angel, a lovely man who was really nice to me. He even remembered me from twitter to my utter embarassement!

He put up with all my fan nonsense even though his handlers wanted me to shoo me away because it was not a ''Meet and Greet'' in their words (thank you for treating the fans like this Creation) but Mr. Spiner signalled me to come over so I could talk to him when he saw me just hovering there waiting to say something.

Later, when I went to have my picture taken with him, he was again quite lovely and really really nice and he remembered my name, which, by the way, he said really well (it's french). I have to say, this is one of the fondest memories I have from the convention.

So I raise my glass to you and wish you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRENT!!!!!!

Star Trek Nominated for Four Academy Awards

The Oscar nominees were announced this morning but alas, no best picture nomination for JJ Abrams' re-invention of the Star Trek franchise. This is a huge disappointment for me.

However, the movie was nomited for Visual Effects, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Makeup.

Congratulations and best of luck to those nominated.

Go here to see the list of nominees.

Patrick Stewart Interested to Appear in Star Trek Sequel

Sir patrick Stewart said, in a recent convention appearance in Australia called OzTrek2, that he would be interested in appearing in an upcoming Star Trek movie sequel.

Stewart mentioned:

If I was asked to do a guest role, like Leonard, in the new film, I would do that. They’re a fabulously talented group of individuals

We also learn that other former Star Trek Captains have shown interest in appearing in a future movie.

Besides William Shatner, both Kate Mulgrew and Scott Bakula are apparently keen on appearing in a sequel, whereas Avery Brooks is more interested to appear in a DS9 movie.

In my opinion, Scott Bakula is the better candidate, as they have already mentioned Admiral Archer in the 2009 movie. He could make an appearance much like DeForest Kelley did in the pilot for Star Trek: The Next Generation.

However, I would absolutely LOVE to see Captain Picard again in a Star Trek movie as he is my favourite captain.

What about you? Who would you want to see appearing in an upcoming Star Trek sequel?

Go here to read the convention report and what Sir Patrick has to say about working with Ian McKellen, X-Men, Doctor Who and more.

Bill Nighy in Doctor Who Series 5!!!

I wake up and what news do I see? Bill Nighy, who was in Shaun of the Dead, Underworld and Pirates of the Carribean amongst many other things, is to guest-star in an episode of Doctor Who!! How brilliant is this?

The British thespian will play the curator of the Van Goh exhibit in the Richard Curtis penned episode that also stars Tony Curran as Vincent Van Goh himself. Apparently, he will have some similar fashion choices to The Doctor himself.

The episode, the Tenth in series 5, will take place both in the present day and in 19th century France.

Series 5 is gearing up to be exceptional. How excited are you about this casting news?

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