Wizarding Times

It's one of my favorite times of year, sadly enough — time for the Fall TV season to start back up again! There are a few new shows and certainly a great number of returning shows that my household is ready to watch!

I've picked one returning show and one new show about which I'm terribly excited. I hope you'll watch them (or, are watching them) and get excited about them, too! (All information was pulled from the SyFY site, FOX site, and Wikipedia; all photos belong to FOX and SyFy and the appropriate companies that own them. I claim NO ownership!)

Returning this Fall: Sanctuary on SyFy, premieres in the USA on October 9

Take a decades-old brilliant scientist by the name of Helen Magnus (portrayed by the brilliant Amanda Tapping), set her in a place called the "Sanctuary." Add in non-human type beings called Abnormals. Give Magnus a daughter and a protégé, set them in a world that isn't familiar with Abnormals. Add in mystery, action, humor, and a good story and stunning FX. You've got Sanctuary.

The show is the brainchild of Producer Damian Kindler. Kindler is known for his work on Stargate (SG-1 and Atlantis). He's writing and producing the series. The show was originally solely an 8-episode long web-series that was released in early 2007. It was such a success that SyFy decided to pick it up as an actual, on-air TV series. That's pretty unheard of thus far in the industry. I'm hoping that more shows and ideas will trend this way — either going from web to your TV or from your TV to the Web. Battlestar Galactica actually did a series of webisodes that tied into their main storyline. It's great to have more than one venue in which to showcase talent!

Another unique idea that the show brings us is their use of the green screen. A green scene is fairly familiar to folks. See someone flying like Superman? They are shot against a green screen and the sky is filled in. You get the idea.

Sanctuary uses green screen for a majority of their sets. It helps cut free any stipulations they might have in normal set building. This is fairly typical for some movies of the genre — not so much for a TV series!

You'll find the production of this show based in Vancouver, British Columbia (located in Canada). Currently, the show is going into its second season this fall.

New This Fall: Glee on FOX, premieres in the USA on September 9

It's something that most people wouldn't ever dream of making a TV series about — a group of "gleeks" (glee geeks) who are in high school, led by an intrepid former Glee Club member, dogged by snooty cheerleaders, football players and their coach.

It's dead in the water. No one wants to see musical TV. Right?

Yeah... you'd be pretty wrong about that. FOX tried something new and different this year. They released the pilot episode of Glee way back in May of this year. They've re-aired it this summer. You can find it online. The series doesn't start until this fall. It's wonky... it's new... it's working.

The show has already received quite a bit of critical reception — both good and bad. In fact, the first ten minutes (of the hour-long show) had even me going, "Meh... it's okay...."

Then they started singing... and I pretty much fell in love. It's the classic underdog story set to music. These are characters who have qualities we see in ourselves — they are singing against the odds of being hated, shunned, and looked down upon by everyone from their principal to the coach of the cheerleading squad.

And, they are sarcastic, funny, and smart about it. I, for one, can't wait for Glee to start. FOX is being pretty smart, too, and is pairing it with So You Think You Can Dance during the week. That show has a huge viewership and pairs up nicely with a show about singing and dancing high-schoolers!

So, that's my report on just two of the shows I'll be catching this fall. There are a lot of great shows out there. Sometimes it is hard to figure out what to watch — but, with the online resources we have and the amount of folks we know, it's usually pretty easy to get a glimpse of who likes what... and to take a peek at a show to decide whether or not it fits you!