Sci Fi TV Week in Review: Johnny Jay’s irreverent, snarky, and caffeine-fueled look back at the past week in sci fi TV in five minutes or less.
A live-action Spider-Man series is in the works but it is unlike any of the other incarnations of the character we have seen in theaters or on the small screen of late. The Amazon-produced series is based on the Spider-Man Noir comics which take place in an alternate universe. In that world, a Peter Parker from the 1930s is bitten by a highly-venomous spider housed inside a spider-god idol before taking on his spider superpowers. The comics present a more noir and pulp version of the character and that will be carried into the TV series. And according to Deadline, Peter Parker will not be the person who becomes Spider-Man, though the character’s true identity has not been announced yet. Oren Uziel (The Lost City) will be the writer and showrunner for the series and he will be joined by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Amy Pascal as executive producers. This actually sounds like an interesting take on the character and could make it into Prime Video’s slate of originals by the end of the year.
The main cast of the upcoming Walking Dead spin-off series Daryl Dixon has been announced. Daryl may have been somewhat of a loner in TWD, but it sounds like he will be surrounded by quite a number of people in the new show. Clémence Poésy was already announced in the role of Isabelle. Joining her will be several newcomers including Anne Charrier as Genet, Eriq Ebanouey as Fallou, Laika Blanc Francard as Sylvie, Romain Levi as Codron and Louis Puech Scigliuzzi as Laurent. The show is currently set to premiere later this year.
The Nevers has a premiere date on Tubi TV–and will include the six episodes that have never been aired–but you are going to have clear your schedule to watch it. According to TVLine.com the first five episodes of the series will premiere on Tubi’s live-streaming WB TV Watchlist Channel Monday, February 13th starting at 12:39 PM EST. The next four episodes will premiere February 14th at 1:28 PM EST, and the final three will premiere February 15th at 2:40 PM EST. These will be live-streaming only and it is unclear when they will be available on demand. The next time the episodes will be available on live-streaming will be March 1st through 3rd. That’s not a particularly convenient time to binge the series and there is no way to record since these are live-streaming. Hopefully, the on-demand option will be available before too long.
This week brought one more cancellation and two more renewals for sci fi/fantasy shows. HBO officially announced the cancellation of its space comedy Avenue 5, though it has been assumed for some time that it would not continue to a third season. Amazon has given the greenlight to a second season of The Peripheral and that was already expected seeing as Production Weekly had it listed as moving forward. And AMC has renewed Mayfair Witches for a second season after that show got off to a strong start in digital viewing.
In ratings news, Syfy’s new series The Ark dropped to a 0.04 rating based on same-day viewing for the 18-49 demographic with 408K total viewers which will be getting that one moved to Bubble status. Netflix’s supernatural drama Lockwood & Co. vaulted up to the Number 1 slot in that streamer’s Top 10 viewership list which is quite impressive seeing as it received almost no promotion. Keep up with the renewal/cancellation status of all the current sci fi TV shows at CancelledSciFi.com.
Next week brings the highly-anticipated premiere of Star Trek: Picard Season 3 which will bring back most of the Next Generation cast. That one will start releasing episodes for its final season on Thursday. Also premiering next week is the final season of Carnival Row (Friday, Prime Video) and the new sci fi comedy Hello Tomorrow! (Friday, Apple TV+). You can see all the premieres for February and beyond at this link and you can keep up with the current schedule at this link.
Be sure to keep up with the news during the week at r/SciFiTV.
SciFiTVSite.com: Follow our Sci Fi TV Schedule for all the currently airing and upcoming sci fi and fantasy television shows, and you can see the premieres for all the upcoming genre entries at this link.
CancelledSciFi.com: Keep up with the status updates on all the airing, returning, and upcoming sci fi and fantasy shows for the current season with our Cancellation Watch posts. And be sure to follow the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news and updates.
