RIP Terry Carter

Terry Carter, who portrayed Pvt. Sugie Sugarman on The Phil Silvers Show, the sidekick of Dennis Weaver’s character on McCloud and Colonel Tigh on the original version of Battlestar Galactica, has died. He was 95. Carter died Tuesday at his home in Manhattan, his son, Miguel Carter DeCoste confirmed. Carter appeared three times on Broadway early in his career and produced and directed a documentary on jazz legend Duke Ellington for PBS’ American Masters series in 1988. As Col. Tigh on one of my favourite tv shows of all time, he was the no-nonsense, loyal to a fault deputy to the show’s patriarch Commander Adama (the late Lorne Greene).

The Brooklyn native, born John Everett DeCoste, appeared on all four seasons (1955-59) of CBS’ The Phil Silvers Show (also known as Sgt. Bilko) as Pvt. Sugarman, the only Black regular on the comedy. He then played Sgt. Joe Broadhurst alongside Weaver’s Deputy Marshal Sam McCloud on NBC’s McCloud from 1970-77 and Tigh in the 1978 Battlestar Galactica movie and 1978-79 ABC series. From 1965-68, he served as the first Black news anchor on a New England TV station, WBZ-TV in Boston. Carter formed his own production company in 1975 and made documentaries, including one on dancer-choreographer Katherine Dunham that premiered in 2013.

His acting résumé included the films Parrish (1961), starring Claudette Colbert and Karl Malden; Benji (1974), written and directed by Joe Camp; and Foxy Brown (1974), starring Pam Grier. He also had TV gigs on Naked City, The Defenders, Combat!, That Girl, Bracken’s World, Mannix, Julia, The Jeffersons, Falcon Crest, The Fall Guy, Mr. Belvedere and 227. Survivors include his third wife, Selome; his children, Miguel and Melinda; and his stepdaughter, Hiwot.

How You Will Travel In The Future – Different Star System

In the future how will we travel? I hope that we will emulate some of the science fiction shows & movies and we travel in a lot more comfort and luxury than what we do right now an with a whole more safety. When will this happen, I do not know, but it will happen. Let’s say that you are traveling from somewhere on earth and traveling to another planet which we have colonized. Like let’s say we have colonized multiple planets or that humankind now lives on the 10 planets & 7 moons like in the futuristic world that I have created up for my stories. And you have planned to travel to a different star system system as you are creating a paper on something – like maybe a report for university about the atmosphere of some star system or something.

So you sit at your desk at home post breakfast and then do a video call with a travel agent representative. She clicks on her screens and finds you a large spaceship that is traveling to that star system, and others, as part of a tourist / pleasure cruise. Once you give her a confirmation, you add your credentials and identification to the screen so she can access it so on her end and book the room for you. You are traveling with your Golden Retriever and a domestic robot. She books the room for the 3 of you, comments on the beauty of your dog and then tells you when you should arrive for the trip and then wish you a happy & fruitful trip. On the day of the journey, you are driven to the airport and you get into the line to check in. You, your dog & robot are then directed to this lounge area and there you wait for a while with a coffee and a sandwich for you, a bowl of water and chow for your pet.

When it is boarding time you are beamed into the large spaceship, along with the rests of the 1000+ passengers. The 20 staff and over 100 hospitality robots take care of guiding the passengers to the various single rooms or family suites, depending on who you are, and you find your gorgeous room – a large comfortable bed, a desk with a computer console inbuilt into it here you can also use your own personal device. Tv screens and a replicator wardrobe section built into the wall on one section and a food & drink replicator on another section. A dining table with chairs, plus a couple of sofas in the middle. You also have a large bathroom with a tub, sink/mirror, an enclosed shower and toilet with a separated enclosed shower and toilet section for your dog. You settle down for the evening an decide to take a shower and change after the spaceship takes off into space.

You have several days before you reach your destination star system. You can go around the ship and visit on of the several restaurants and bars that serve you food cooked and prepared to your specifications and you can have some food made for your pet too. Or you can sit in your room / suite and replicate some delicious food. As you are winding down for the night, your dinner done but you are just sipping that after dinner drink or ice cream you do a quick video call with your family back home and then change into your pjs, call for the lights to dim down and get into bed. Your robot connects to the charger in the room, while your dog after contemplating her luxurious dog bed, looks up at you with those puppy eyes, so you sigh and let her on the bed, carefully tucking the covers around her.

You scratch her ears and let her loving lick your face before you both lie down and drift off to sleep. As do most of the other passengers in the ship. The crew sign off after the final checks and then go to their quarters for their sleep, as the robots take over the running of the ship which travels through space heading towards your destination.

Star Trek Discovery’s 5th & Final Season Comes Out In Just Over A Month

The 5th and final season of Star Trek Discovery is soon upon us. As per the update from Paramount, the 10 episode season will premier on April 4th and end on May 30th. The most divisive of the Star Trek shows which debuted back in 2017, season 5 follows the crew of the starship Discovery in the 32nd century, more than 900 years after Star Trek: The Original Series, on a galactic adventure to find a mysterious power that has been hidden for centuries and which other dangerous groups are also searching for.

Sonequa Martin-Green stars as Michael Burnham, captain of the Discovery, along with the returning Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Wilson Cruz, Blu del Barrio, and David Ajala. They are joined by Callum Keith Rennie (yes from Due South, Hard Core Logo & Battlestar Galactica) who plays a new character named Captain Rayner,  war-time Starfleet captain struggling to adjust to peace. He is joined this season by fellow Canadians Eve Harlow as Moll & Elias Toufexis as L’ak – who look like they will be the main villains of the season. Returning in supporting roles are Oded Fehr as Charles Vance, Chelah Horsdal as Laira Rillak, Tara Rosling as T’Rina, David Cronenberg as Kovich & Tig Notaro as Jett Reno.

While I admit that the show deserves credit for the fact that we have had four other shows after it’s early success, I am not sad to see it end. There is way too many problems with the show, the casting the writing and the acting. Special effects is awesome and I must say that I did like the 1st season and the second season – mainly for getting us Pike, Una & young Spock and the spinoff Strange New Worlds. The crying, the whispering, the head titling and Space Jesus and the “feelings”  – ugh. I have so many issues with the acting and casting choices of Mary Wiseman an Blu Del Barrio as well as David Adjala but I am so glad that they got rid of Ian Alexander as he was terrible! Hoping that season 5 will be way better.

RIP Gary Graham

American actor Gary Graham, known for a variety of roles in the Star Trek universe, and his lead role on the tv series Alien Nation, has reportedly passed away. He was 73 years old.  His ex-wife, actress Susan Lavelle, broke the sad news on her personal Facebook page in the early morning hours of Tuesday, Jan. 23, sharing a series of photos that included Gary hugging their daughter, Haylee Graham, he and Lavelle attending the Sixth Annual Television Hall of Fame Awards in 1990, and a press photo from the series Alien Nation, in which he starred as Detective Matthew Sikes.

With a career spanning five decades beginning in the 1970s in television and movies, he is perhaps best known for his starring role as Detective Matthew Sikes in the television series Alien Nation (1989–1990) and five subsequent Alien Nation television films (1994–1997), as well as his work in the Star Trek franchise, most notably the recurring role of Soval, the Vulcan ambassador to Earth in Star Trek: Enterprise. Born in Long Beach, California. One of his earliest roles was in the 1980 CBS mini series  Scruples based on the Judith Krantz novel starring Lindsay Wagner. He was cast as a “hitman” on the television show Moonlighting co-starring opposite Bruce Willis. Graham played more than 38 TV roles and had been in more than 40 movies.

He also guest-starred on Star Trek: Voyager (1995) once, playing Ocampan community leader Tanis in the season 2 episode “Cold Fire”. He played Ragnar in the fan production Star Trek: Of Gods and Men and continued that role in Star Trek: Renegades. In 2015, Graham reprised his role as Ambassador Soval, in the fan film Star Trek: Axanar. As a musician, Graham was in the bands The Gary Graham Garage Band, The Gary Graham Band and The Sons of Kirk.

Eight Scifi Movies Set In The Snow

Decoys was heavily inspired by the movie Species. The film centers around a small college town in the middle of winter when a group of alien females attempt to mate with human males. The problem: the aliens need extremely cold temperatures and freeze every human during the mating process. Many now see the film as a play on gender roles, reversing the typical gendered stereotypes by putting women in sexual control. For a small indie film, it was also well received and even got a sequel in 2007.

It wasn’t supposed to be winter, but after a cataclysmic series of events due to climate change, The Day After Tomorrow depicted an Earth swallowed up by the next Ice Age. The movie outraged conservatives everywhere who disliked the movie’s portrayal of a careless administration (based on the W. Bush White House) and who feared that the movie would help get citizens energized about issues like climate change and pollution. Regardless of their protests, the film gained more than $550 million at the box office and had DVD sales of over $100 million.

Another movie about climate change gone awry is The Colony. In this dystopian film, humanity attempted to control rampant global warming by creating giant weather machines. However, when the next ice age begins, society is forced underground in “colonies”. The movie is about the personal struggles communities face during times of dire pain and suffering. It was also seen by many as a reminder to humanity that we are not stronger than nature.

Fans of Alien and Predator were excited when the long-awaited crossover finally, Alien VS Predator arrived. The movie centers around a group of explorers who discover an ancient complex buried beneath the ice on the frigid Bouvet Island, near Antarctica. The team soon discovers that they’ve actually walked straight into a coliseum where Predators prove their might by going head-to-head with the Xenomorph aliens. The movie is also credited with helping to reignite interest in the franchises, leading to the numerous Alien and Predator films that have followed.

This lesser-known Stephen King movie was a box office failure upon release, but Dreamcatcher has gained a cult following throughout the years. It focuses on a group of friends who developed telepathic powers, and who unknowingly end up in the middle of an alien invasion while vacationing in the Maine woods. The movie is much slower, darker, and more convoluted than most of King’s work. However, the movie has found a select group of fans who say it’s one of King’s most underrated masterpieces.

Snowpiercer is another dystopian film that centers around the world after it has been thrown into the next ice age, thanks to a disastrous attempt at engineering a solution to climate change. Now, the last remnants of humanity live aboard the Snowpiercer, a train that endlessly circles the planet. However, class divides and poverty leads to a revolution onboard the train. The movie was heavily praised and even led to the Snowpierce TV reboot which stars Jennifer Connelly, Lena Hall, Sean Bean, and more.

John Carpenter’s classic body-horror film The Thing takes place in Antarctica when a team of American researchers discovers a body-snatching alien that can infest and perfectly imitate its prey. The movie had a lukewarm performance at the box office, but has since developed universal acclaim in the decades following its release. It’s even led to a video game adaptation, a novelization, a comic series, and a prequel that was released in 2011.

The Thing is a 2011 American science fiction horror film directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., and starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead. It is a direct prequel to the 1982 film of the same name by John Carpenter, which was an adaptation of the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell. It tells the story of a team of scientists on a Norwegian Antarctic research station who discover a  parasitic  alien  buried deep in the ice, realizing too late that it is still alive.

The Triple Tragedy Of The Misfits Of Science

Misfits of Science is an American science fiction comedy-drama television series that aired on NBC from October 4, 1985, to February 21, 1986. Although the show only lasted 1 season and 16 episodes, it’s only my childhood favourites and it should have been more successful. It starred Dean Paul Martin, Kevin Peter Hall, Mark Thomas Miller, a very young Courtney Cox, Jennifer Holmes (she was only in 7 episodes), Max Wright (just before he joined ALF) & Diane Civita. It’s about a group of super-powered humans, and later inspired the tv show Heroes, (same writer). It was a lot of fun.

Dr. Billy Hayes, the leader of the team (who has no superpowers). He is a young research scientist at the Humanidyne Institute who specializes in “human anomalies” and his boyish enthusiasm who often gets the team into as much trouble as he gets them out of. He like Jane Miller has no superpower but his thinking always finds a way out. Dr. Elvin “El” Lincoln, Billy’s colleague and close friend. He has the ability to shrink for minutes at a time from his height of 7 ft 4 in (224 cm) to 11 in (28 cm) via hormonal treatments which he activates by pressing a nerve on the back of his neck.  Johnny “Johnny B” Bukowski, a rock and roll musician who was electrically shocked on stage which resulted in disturbing electrical powers. He continually drains any electrically charged items in his surroundings, forcing him to live in isolation. He wears sunglasses because his eyes glow when he is fully charged. He can throw lightning bolts forcefully and run at superhuman speed, but is vulnerable to water.

Gloria Dinallo, a troubled telekinetic teenager with a history of juvenile delinquency and a mother in a mental institution who claims Gloria’s father is from outer space. She has a crush on Johnny. Gloria can only use her telekinesis on things that she can see: using a blindfold on her renders her powerless.  Jane Miller, Gloria’s probation officer. Although attracted to Billy, she is often put off by his eccentric behavior. Her character appears only in the earlier episodes, disappearing after the first 7 episodes. Dick Stetmeyer, the uptight director of the Humanidyne Institute & Miss Nance, the scientists’ secretary, who is more interested in working on her nails and coffee breaks, round out the characters.

Dean Paul Martin died in 1987 in a snowstorm up in the mountains. Kevin Peter Hall, who would later portray The Predator in two films and Harry in Harry & The Hendersons, would later died due to AIDS related pneumonia in 1991. In 1991, Mark Thomas iIller was in a disfiguring accident that stalled his career, so he became a building contractor specializing in home remodeling for the handicapped, which he did until 2003. Mark made a minor attempt at reviving his career by performing with the Groundling Improv Group, but soon found out that he had lost the patience required for the business of acting. In 2003, he started a product engineering and development company.