SciFi Diner Podcast Ep. 131 – Reasons We Love Fringe, Trivia Winners, New Trivia, News and More!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Pin It

SciFi Diner Podcast Ep. 131 Part 1

Reasons We Love Fringe, Trivia Winners,

New Trivia, News and More!

The SciFi Diner Podcast

Please call the listener line at 1.888.508.4343,

Email us at scifidinerpodcast@gmail.com

or visit us on Twitter @scifidiner.

Facebook Fan Page.

And check out our YouTube channel.

Tonight’s Diners: Scott & Miles

Welcome to the Diner.

If you have listened to the show for sometime, we would love to have you leave feedback on iTunes. We know not all of you use iTunes, but for those that do, it helps us become more visible. If you don’t use iTunes, your feedback is still valuable. Visit our webpage at https://scifidinerpodcast.com and leave a comment on the show notes or email us at scifidinerpodcast@gmail.com We want to know what you are thinking about what we are saying and what shows you are watching.

Music at the end of this week’s episode is the song The Final Rewind by Tyrad.

In the first course tonight:

• Trivia:   The winner of the Star Trek Comic Book Give Away; New Trivia with a chance to win Kristen Bauer AND Emelie Ullerup
• TV News:  Reasons we love Fringe!
• Movie News:  All You Need Is Kill;  The International Spiderman Trailer
• TWIST: You can have breakfast with Gowron & Martok at Bayou Con; Walter Koenig will get his star on the Hollywood walk of fame.
• SciFi Five in Five: Top Quickest Ways To Get Around the Universe from Colin

 

Trivia:

New Trivia:  What does Species 8472 and the Cylons have in common?

Prize: Emellie Ullerop & Kristen Bauer
You will have until May 14th  to send us your answers. Please include the code word mentioned in the first 15 minutes of the show. Send your answer with your mailing address to scifidinerpodcast@gmail.com, call us at 18885084343, or DM us on Twitter at @scifidiner. Make sure you include your e-mail with all entries! Only one entry per person.   The SciFi Diner is not responsible for any injuries occurring if you secretly decide to go all shiny and dress in a browncoat and walk into your local bar.

Old trivia:

Question: Name an actor who has guest starred in such shows as Leverage,  Dr. Who, Supernatural, Doll House, Firefly & Star Trek Voyager.

Answer: Mark Shepherd

The Prize: Issues 3 – 6 of the new JJ Verse Comic

Winner: Jason Taylor

Honorable Mention (Sorry No Prize): Scott Chandler who also mentioned Mark guest starred in Chuck, The Middleman, Bionic Woman, Jake 2.0, Sliders, and The Invisible Man TV shows, among others. (

Promo

Parsec Awards

Balticon

TV News:

20 REASONS WE LOVE: FRINGE (Thanks Kevin)

Jayne Nelson (the one from this universe, not her alternate twin) explains why Fringe Division are the best in their league…

IT’S THE SHOW THAT PLAYS fast and loose with the laws of physics, the laws of gravity and just about every other scientific law there is. Professor Brian Cox would not approve. But if you take off your lab coat, put your feet up on the sofa and forget scientific accuracy, Fringe is one of the most brilliantly-imagined fantasy dramas to come along in ages – it even has parallel universes to choose from!

1 IT’S THE NEW X-FILES

Once you could have used this as evidence to prove why Fringe was rather lacking. Back in season one it seemed the show ripped off a different X-Files concept each week; the gruesome, unexplainable body counts were tailor-made for Agent Mulder, and Agent Dunham walking down endless dark corridors with a torch was Scully all over again.

But times have changed. Now we’re far enough away from The X-Files to miss it and its bonkers conspiracy theories, neatly echoed inFringe by the manipulations of mega-corporation Massive Dynamic. And Fringe is carefully harking back to Mulder and Scully’s finest hours without falling foul of what eventually made The X-Files falter: repetition. This is The X-Files’s younger, fresher, snazzier little cousin.

2 THE CONCEPT

It took a while to take form – the show spent a while rummaging around in Olivia’s head and focusing on her dead boyfriend – but when we finally got to hear Fringe’s mega plot-arc, it was epic. Walter Bishop lost his son to a deadly illness; invented a way to cross into a parallel universe; kidnapped his son from there and brought him back. By doing so, he sparked off a series of paradoxes and glitches that resulted in cracks appearing in both universes, ensuring that one of them has to be destroyed for the other to survive. Fringe Division is set up to fight both the widening, devastating effects of this damage and to defeat their alternate universe foes – and it’s all delivered as straight-faced, straight-up sci-fi drama. Delicious.

4 PETER BISHOP

Kudos to Joshua Jackson for downplaying Peter so perfectly, stepping back to allow his on-screen father to eat up the scenery and calmly letting Anna Torv’s female lead be the focus of the show (how nice for the man to be the sidekick for once). And yet, while Peter is often quiet or laid-back, he also displays a wicked sense of humour and a furious urge to do what’s right, making it hard to imagine the show without him.

5 OUR FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE TWIN TOWERS

The season one finale, “There’s More Than One Of Everything”, ended with a gut-punch visual that couldn’t help but hook viewers for one more season. Our first full visit to the other universe saw Olivia meeting Walter’s former partner and friend William Bell – none other than Leonard Nimoy, who else? – but the location for their rendezvous was a New York that had clearly never suffered the September 11 attacks (indeed, we later learn that the White House was destroyed instead). The sight of the World Trade Center towers standing proudly intact couldn’t be beaten for sheer emotional wallop.

6 NINA SHARP’S HAIR

Perhaps it’s another nod to The X-Files, with Nina’s stunning red hairdo a sly wink to Scully’s flaming mane. Or perhaps the actress just likes being scarlet. Either way, her hair almost deserves a show of its own – it’s so vibrant it could almost be alive. In fact, it’s almost as cool as Nina’s robot hand, which in itself is cooler than a particularly chilly bit of Antarctica.

7 THE OPENING CREDITS

Whenever we slip into the other universe, the opening credits change – not only their colour, but also the words that flash up on screen. The first time it happened it was like being slapped in the mug because it was so unexpected, and the novelty still hasn’t died down, with the credits seemingly changing from week to week. The latest season has been orange.

8 THE OBSERVERS

There are two games you can play while watching Fringe: trying to decipher the glyphs that pop up around the show’s commercial breaks (butterflies, frogs, flowers, all with secret meanings that are endlessly discussed online) or trying to spot the Observers. These bald-headed, emotionless men (are they men? Are they aliens? Who knows?) turn up to watch every important event in history and are strewn all over the series, although if you manage to spot one in every episode you’ve got the eyes of an eagle.

9 BLINK AND YOU MISS ’EM GAGS

The alternate universe seems very similar to ours, yes, but every time we stop by it’s possible to spot something the writers have tweaked. There’s an ad for the musical Dogs, for instance, instead of Cats. Apparently The West Wing never got cancelled. Back To The Future starred Eric Stoltz. Green Lantern and Green Arrow are Red Lantern and Red Arrow. Oh, and Manhattan is spelt with one “t”. That one’s really freaky…

10 FAUXLIVIA

It’s no secret that most Fringe fans, as much as they love the show, find Olivia Dunham a tad dull. And it’s understandable: she does come off as a little cold at times. Some blamed Anna Torv, saying it must be the actress’s lack of charisma… but boy, did they eat their words when we got our first chance to meet Olivia’s alternate universe twin, soon cheekily nicknamed Fauxlivia.

This version of Olivia cracks jokes, has sex, has better hair (ironic how a fringe can make such a difference in Fringe) and even seems to enjoy her life (gasp!). Bizarrely, her liveliness ended up making Torv’s performance as our Olivia look magical in its coolness. Now that’s acting.

11 IT’S WOTSERNAME!

Astro. Asteroid. Asterisk. Asterix. Ashram. Astrid. Ostrich. Aspirin. Astral. One of these is correct; the rest are Walter’s attempts to remember who the hell his lab assistant is. It’s always hilarious.

12 THE EPISODE “PETER”

No prizes for figuring out what this second season episode is about. The story of Walter’s desperate quest to save his dying son and his fateful, world-destroying final decision is told with extraordinary sensitivity in flashback form – and the astonishing make-up and digital effects used to make the actors seem younger add to “Peter”’s brilliance. The lynchpin episode on which all of Fringe rests.

13 LINCOLN LEE

Fringe has a way of subtly sneaking characters under your nose until you suddenly realise you adore them. Nowhere is this more evident than with Seth Gabel’s Lincoln Lee. Originally a stranger to us because he only appeared in the parallel universe Fringe Division, he’s since popped up over here, too (as a geek, no less, rather than his kick-ass soldier alternate self) and now both Lincolns have a mega-crush on Olivias who are apparently completely unaware of his puppy-dog-eyed love. This naturally makes Lincoln adorable, although don’t tell Alt-Lincoln that because he has a bloody big gun. Our Lincoln would probably just blush under his enormous nerdy specs…

14 WILL THEY/WON’T THEY/THEY DID/EXCEPT NOT REALLY REALLY

It’s been a long, beautifully understated romance that even they weren’t aware of most of the time, but Peter and Olivia are clearly Meant To Be Together. Which made it all the more awkward when along came Fauxlivia to seduce Peter while pretending to be Olivia. Emotional tension? Fringe is rather good at it.

15 ALTERNATE BROYLES

How on earth a character can be such a one-note cypher in our universe and a hard-edged, hard-assed hero in another is beyond us, but that’s Broyles for you. Over here, he issues orders, asks questions, wears suits and looks worried. Over there, he’s a ripped hunk who wears tight t-shirts, has a loving family and sacrifices himself to save Olivia. He’s done it brilliantly. And now he even gets to take a third swing at the character as a dubious sort who is working for the orange universe baddies.

16 THE PATTERN

Fringe Division investigate strange events that happen on the fringes of science (hence their name). Incidents include people on a balcony falling to their deaths after it phases out of existence for a few seconds, leaving them in mid-air; a group of unfortunate souls who are lighter than gravity so they’re in danger of floating off into space; robbers walking right through the walls of a bank vault; time speeding up or slowing down… it’s pure sci-fi nirvana.

17 AMBER 31422

This chemical substance freezes things in “amber” – which comes in handy when the “things” in question are giant tears in the space-time continuum! Each rip, such as the one in the parallel universe’s Central Park, can be frozen inside this solid substance and contained. It’s a brilliant concept, but what makes it even more astounding is the fact that people are often caught inside the amber, too, and they remain alive while caught fast. Do they have rights? Should they be saved? Fascinating stuff…

18 THEY EXPECT YOU TO KEEP UP

There’ll be no slouching at the back when you watch Fringe, thank you. You either pay attention or you lose out. This is because the writers have no time for stragglers – particularly when they first rolled out the parallel universe, which was introduced to us so matter-of-factly you had to really stop and think about the fact they all wore communication earpieces like nothing we’ve got here, or the Statue of Liberty was gold, or coins had Richard Nixon’s head on them. Some of the concepts are staggeringly complex but delivered in a deliciously straightforward fashion, such as the antique typewriter which can be used to type messages across universes with the aid of a mirror.

20 THE BIG GIANT WORDS

The typography on Fringe is not only striking but also important. Whereas, for example, The X-Files would tell us where we were with a polite label on the bottom of the screen saying “Miami, Florida”, on Fringe we get enormous, 3D type that screams “MIAMI, FLORIDA”. It’s not an original idea – these enormous words, interacting with their surroundings and casting luscious shadows, were put to excellent use during the opening credits of the 2002 film Panic Room. But they’ve become a vital part of the Fringe experience; how else would we know where the hell we were unless we could see those mammoth letters saying “MANHATAN” [sic] to indicate we’re not at home any more?

Movie News:

Emily Blunt to Star Opposite Tom Cruise In ALL YOU NEED IS KILL

Tuesday, April 17th, 2012

Back in December, we brought you news that Tom Cruise (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) was all but official to star in the Doug Liman (Fair Game, Jumper 2) directed big screen adaptation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s novel, All You Need Is Kill. Cruise is definitely on board to star in this sci-fi war film as the script was even reworked to accommodate Cruise’s age.

Now, THR reports that Emily Blunt (The Five-Year Engagement, The Adjustment Bureau) is in talks to star opposite Cruise in this Warner Bros. Pictures project as Valkyrie One, “one of humankind’s best soldiers.”

Novel Synopsis:

There’s one thing worse than dying. It’s coming back to do it again and again . . . When the alien Gitai invade, Keiji Kiriya is just one of many raw recruits shoved into a suit of battle armor and sent out to kill. Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to find himself reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On the 158th iteration though, he sees something different, something out of place: the female soldier known as the Bitch of War. Is the Bitch the key to Keiji’s escape, or to his final death?

 

This week in Star Trek:

Eat Breakfast With Klingons And Live To Tell About It. (BayouCon 2012)

By Crewman Becky | April 16, 2012 – 10:55 pm

Eat Breakfast With Klingons And Live To Tell About It

It’s getting closer to June and that means closer to BayouCon in Lake Charles LA. They have some fabulous guests lined up including J.G. Hertzler (DS9 – Martok), Robert O’Reilly (DS9 – Chancellor Gowron), and Larry Nemecek (Author of Star Trek The Next Generation Companion and the TNG Concordance). Besides all the cool stuff we previously told you BayouCon is putting on (like J.G & Robert in full Klingon costume) we’re pleased to let you know about the latest addition to the cool-stuff lineup…A Klingon Breakfast!  And it’s presented by yours truly. That’s right, Subspace Communique will be presenting J.G Hertzler and Robert O’Reilly to a group of 30 excited fans who get to chat with the Klingons guys while they spend time at each table. Besides chatting one-on-one, the breakfast’s attendees will be able to take pictures with J.G. and Robert…so don’t forget your cameras!

We’re pretty excited to be participating in the breakfast and plan on practicing our bat’leth skills…just in case. The menu hasn’t been decided just yet, but personally, I like a light breakfast in the morning. Now…as long as the kitchen doesn’t serve Gagh and Pipius Claw it’ll be perfect.

This event is limited to 30 tickets and must be purchased in addition to regular convention admission.

Tickets – $30 per person

 

Trek Celebs Celebrate Walter Koenig’s Walk Of Fame Star With Video Tribute + Gala Event & Ceremony April 12, 2012

by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: Celebrity, Conventions/Events/Attractions, TOS , trackback

On Monday September 10th, Star Trek’s Walter Koenig will become the last member of the TOS crew to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And it has just been announced that Leonard Nimoy will be attending the event. There will also be a special “Koenig Gala Celebration” over the weekend with more special guests, including Nichelle Nichols, Marina Sirtis and more. Details below, plus watch congratulations video featuring William Shatner, George Takei and many more Trek and sci-fi luminaries.

 

The Walter Koenig Star Celebration: a Gala Tribute

Over the weekend of September 8th and 9th, Planet Xpo (producer of the ‘Beam Me Up Scotty One Last Time event) is hosting a Gala tribute and Celebration of Walter Koenig at Universal Studios Hollywood. This all leads up to the ceremony in Hollywood on Monday the 10th where Koenig will be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

On Saturday the event will celebrate the 46th anniversary of Star Trek. Activities will include a tour of the other Star Trek stars on the Walk of Fame, a screening of Walter’s favorite Star Trek episodes (including Q&A with Koenig), and a party with music provided by the Star Trek All-Star Celebrity Band. On Sunday the tribute will have programming focusing on Walter’s career, including rare and never-seen-before screenings of Walter’s early life as an actor. There will also be autograph signings with various stars and celebrities, and a star-studded celebrity Gala Tribute and Roast for Walter.

Guests currently confirmed for this event include Marina Sirtis, Nichelle Nichols, Harlan Ellison, Tim Russ, Armin Shimerman, Bruce Boxleitner, Alan Ruck and many more.

To learn more about this special celebration and to purchase tickets (they are limited to 600 attendees), visit www.planetxpo.com.

On Monday, September 10 there will be a ceremony for Walter’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Speaking at the star ceremony will be Leonard Nimoy and Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski. This event is open to the public.

The people behind Walter’s Gala have also put together this video about the road to getting Walter a star, plus congratulations from many of Waltter’s co-stars over the years, including William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, George Takei, and Nichelle Nichols.

 

The SciFi Five In Five:

From Colin:

My favourite ways to get somewhere really fast in science fiction.

1) warp drive, the most iconic way to travel and one that has spawned a healthy debate for many years.

2) hyperspace jump drive ala Babylon 5

3) ftl drives or faster than light such as the Gouald from Stargate

4) space folding such as that done in the Dune books, travelling without moving

5) gateways, be it iconian from TOS or the gate from Stargate,  get where you want to be in the blink of an eye.