SciFi Stream

The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the “Keep The Change” episode of the Fox series, “New Amsterdam.” “My name is John Amsterdam, and I’m an alcoholic.”"Hello, John.” I’m all for socially relevant stories (I’m a Star Trek fan, after all), but the Alcoholics Anonymous theme in “Keep The Change” left me cold. Here’s what happened this week: A homeless man’s best friend on the street dies of an apparent overdose, but he’s sure it was a homicide. Of course, the police don’t buy it, but John does, and sees in the homeless man something of himself about 40 years ago — an alcoholic in need of help. John flashes back to the 60s when he apparently was a stage performer. (Really, what hasn’t John done in the past?) A friend named Frank helps John enter the AA program by giving …

It started life as a green screen Web series, but that doesn’t mean “Sanctuary” has to limit itself when it moves to television. Quite the opposite in fact as the move to television has allowed the series to widen its scope a little. “The fact is it’s already evolving,” series star and executive producer Amanda Tapping told SciFi Wire. “Our pilot that we’re now going to start shooting is very different from what you’ve seen on the Web. But [Magnus] is still this crazy character. She’s 157 years old, and she’s very eccentric and very sexy and very unapologetic. I love it.” The series, which was created by Stargate veteran Damian Kindler and co-written by Martin Wood, sees Tapping tackle the weird, the bizarre and obscurely paranormal through her work at a Sanctuary for all things …

There may not be a long life in the cards for “New Amsterdam.” The show has now officially lost more than half of its premiere audience after posting a 3.9 rating/6 share, according to Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research. That is a significant drop from the 8.3/12 the show premiered with on Fox less than a month ago, and could spell the eventual doom of a show that actually finished behind sagging ratings from “Dexter” on CBS. Granted, “New Amsterdam” didn’t have a tremendous amount of material to work with as its lead-in was a “House” repeat, but it still lost a significant portion of the 4.8/8 the hospital drama was able to garner for Fox, according to Zap2it. Among the major networks, “New Amsterdam” finished last for its timeslot well behind “Dancing With the Stars” …

ACT I Recently Brian K. Vaughan’s acclaimed comic book series “Y: The Last Man” came to an end with Issue 60. No, it wasn’t canceled. It just ended. Vaughan decided it was time to finish the story. Now New Line Cinema is developing a film with screenwriter Carl Ellsworth (“Disturbia”), director D. J. Caruso (“Disturbia”) and producer David S. Goyer. Now, I’m puzzled. How strange, an ongoing comic book series ending? It seems so logical, but if you look at all the ongoing comic book titles out there (I’m not counting miniseries) I can think of only a few that had real endings. Not just some half-ass attempt to wrap up some storylines and try to leave things so open that the characters could get picked up elsewhere for another title or the book could later be brought back. And you know what? …

It’s easy to be guilty by association. I know that because one time when I was like 8 years old on the mean streets of Johnsonburg, Pa., a bunch of my friends thought it would be great to start throwing rocks. So they did, and they ended up hitting someone’s mom, who obviously got angry and called our parents. I didn’t throw a single rock, but my dad looked me straight in the eye and told me that it didn’t matter if I threw a rock or not. I was still guilty by association. In Hollywood, there’s no such thing as being guilty by association. Instead, like everything else in the world of television and movies, it’s the exact opposite. You’re not guilty by association, but you can gain success and acclaim simply by being associated with something. Sometimes, I wonder if that is what’s happening …

“Jericho” got a bit of an audience boost for its final episode compared to the previous week, but the series finale ended up with viewership just below its second season average. “Jericho” earned a 3.8 rating/6 share according to Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research Tuesday night, slightly below its season overnight average of 3.9/7, The numbers, however, were up nearly 9 percent over last week’s audience, which was a series low. “Jericho” finished last in its 10 p.m. timeslot behind “Primetime” on ABC (7.0/12) and a rerun of “Law & Order: SVU” which gave NBC a 5.7/10. For the final time, “Jericho” didn’t get much help from its lead-in, “Big Brother,” despite holding nearly 100 percent of the reality show’s audience. But that was after the network lost nearly 38 …

This story contains MODERATE SPOILERS of the series finale of “Jericho.” While Tuesday’s series finale was meant to provide some closure to “Jericho” fans, there was an effort to at least keep some storylines at bay in case another network or cable channel decides to pick up the series. “I’ve always said that the alternate ending doesn’t wrap up the series,” executive producer Carol Barbee told Matt Webb Mitovich of TV Guide. “It just lets you know that everyone is OK and it closes out this seven-episode arc. But we could definitely keep it going.” And keeping it going is exactly what Barbee is trying to do by shopping the series around, which reportedly has earned some interest from SciFi Channel which is airing reruns of the show. In the finale, Hawkins (Lennie James) goes face-to-face …

The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the “Patriots and Tyrants” episode of the CBS series, “Jericho.” Since it had to end, I am glad “Jericho” was able to go out in grand style. I can’t imagine anyone can find fault with this episode. Even though a ton of major events took place, this episode, strangely enough did not seem rushed. Perhaps it’s just sentiment, but everything just seemed perfect. This episode sported more heroes than “Heroes.” Instead of super powers, these heroes possessed something much more valuable: free will and the innate sense of right and wrong. Everyone seemed to act heroically, but in different ways. Hawkins and Jake raced from Cheyenne to Texas to intercept and deliver the bomb to proper authorities. Eric resisted temptation to join up with the corrupt …

CBS may be showing the series finale of “Jericho” on Tuesday, but no one can blame the fans for not doing their part. At least not in the eyes of showrunner Carol Barbee. “I think our fans have been amazing,” Barbee recently told Matt Webb Mitovich of TV Guide. “Our fans are not professional marketers. They are people with lives who gave so much of their time and energy and money to keep us on the air. They did more than enough, more than their share. We could not be more grateful to them. There’s a limit to what a fan base can do when you’re trying to reverse a slide in ratings.” Barbee said she had a 24-hour head start to inform the cast and crew about the cancellation before it was announced publicly on Friday, and she was assured by CBS that they were measuring “Jericho’s” audience …

I was talking to my counterpart there in your universe, who I like to call the “Mirror Michael Hinman,” about how “Jericho” ended its run Tuesday night. He says the show ended way too soon, and it was something he looked forward to watching each week. Well, in our alternate world here, “Jericho” has been running strong for nine seasons. In fact, CBS made an expanded order this year of 35 episodes because families just can’t enough of “Jericho.” Me, I’m not that big of a “Jericho” fan. Dropping bombs on cities and killing millions of people, that’s what I used to watch in Saturday morning cartoons. It was very similar to a story point in one of my favorite cartoons in the 1980s called “Gargamel.” I don’t know if you had that cartoon in your universe or not, but the cartoon centers …

Ronald D. Moore may have brought the series to life four years ago through a backdoor pilot, but in all this time he has never directed a single episode. That is, until now. “I’m very excited,” Moore told SciFi Wire. “It should be a treat to work with the cast and crew in a different context. It’s my first time out. I’ll make plenty of mistakes, but I’ll have a good support system to sort of save me from myself. And it’ll be fun.” Since it originally launched as a four-hour mini-series, “Battlestar Galactica” has been met with critical acclaim on all fronts. And according to Moore, that in itself will set quite a challenge as there isn’t likely to be a shot that hasn’t already been tried in the hard-hitting series. “That’s the kind of trap you try not to fall into, because then you …

The final episodes of “Battlestar Galactica” return to its rightful place in front of the cameras Tuesday as executive producer Ronald D. Moore makes his directorial debut. The 12th episode of the fourth and final season begins shooting, and co-executive producer Mark Verheiden is saying very little about what the episode is about. “It will probably run the usual 42-ish minutes and I can almost guarantee it will be shot in beautiful color,” Verheiden wrote in his blog. Verheiden did talk briefly about what it was like to be back at work following the prolonged Writers Guild of America strike that forced production to shut down mid-way through the fourth and final season. “I never cease to be amazed at what a freight train it is when you’re in the middle of production,” he said. “Drafts …