Noticias

Pamela Salem, who portrayed Miss Moneypenny in Never Say Never Again opposite Sean Connery in his final turn as James Bond, has died. She was 80.

Salem died Wednesday in Surfside, Florida, according to Big Finish Productions, for whom she participated in several audio productions.

“Whenever there was a Big Finish recording for her, she’d fly in from Miami on her own steam, without fuss or fanfare, and appear at the studio armed with the warmest smiles, the biggest hugs and often presents,” producer David Richardson said in a statement.

For the BBC’s Doctor Who, Salem played the sandminer pilot Lish Toos on 1977’s “The Robots of Death” and Professor Rachel Jensen on 1988’s “Remembrance of the Daleks.” She reprised both roles for Big Finish in the audio drama series The Robots and radio spinoff series Counter Measures.

Salem also portrayed the evil sorceress Belor on the 1981-82 ITV...

There are roughly two kinds of earthlings people in this world: those who love Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave series and those who haven’t read it yet. The Ya sci-fi book series, the first adaptation of which landed in theaters in January, started in 2013 and has had readers wondering whether we actually do ever want to encounter life out there ever since. (If it’s anything like this bleak imagining, then that’s a hell to the no.) As the the third and final installment to the series The Last Star inches nearer to its spring release, the author, who points to John Christopher’s The Tripods as a reference for his particular brand of menacing visitors from outer space, assures us all that we will finally get the answers to our most burning questions about this extraterrestrial-filled reality he cre ...

There are roughly two kinds of earthlings people in this world: those who love Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave series and those who haven’t read it yet. The Ya sci-fi book series, the first adaptation of which landed in theaters in January, started in 2013 and has had readers wondering whether we actually do ever want to encounter life out there ever since. (If it’s anything like this bleak imagining, then that’s a hell to the no.) As the the third and final installment to the series The Last Star inches nearer to its spring release, the author, who points to John Christopher’s The Tripods as a reference for his particular brand of menacing visitors from outer space, assures us all that we will finally get the answers to our most burning questions about this extraterrestrial-filled reality he cre ...

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Jokers, circus masters and demonic dolls. Which TV characters terrify you? Den Of Geek asked its writers that very question…

The subconscious is a terrible place; dark, mysterious and peopled by spectres from the past. As a bit of a laugh then, we sent our writers journeying into theirs and asked them to drag out any TV terrors they found lurking in the shadows.

Some television fears had been ensconced there since childhood, others were more recent tenants. Some were morally terrifying; human beings with icy hearts capable of atrocities, others were simply… atrocities.

Join us as we count down in order of terror from the sort-of-creepy to the downright terrifying, the 50 TV characters that, for whatever reason, give our writers chills. It’s by no means an exhaustive list, so feel free to fill in gaps by adding your own peculiar television nightmares below…

50. Charn -...

High Moon

Written by Bryan Fuller and Jim Danger Gray

Directed by Adam Kane

Aired September 15, 2014 on Syfy

While Bryan Fuller’s style may be a bit too quirky, macabre, or esoteric for some audiences, there’s no denying that the man knows how to give good pilot. The first episode of Wonderfalls was an endearing, fast-talking affair that gradually injected fantasy into early 20s/retail ennui. The first episode of Pushing Daisies was nothing less than a storybook brought to life, a vibrant spin on the matters of life, death, and what happens when the order of the two reverses. And the first episode of Hannibal was a visceral, otherworldly affair that made it clear from the outset it wasn’t your parents’ Hannibal Lecter.

That track record leads to a lot of high expectations for High Moon, even though unlike those previous shows the pilot is (likely) all there’s going to be.

Television director who worked on Doctor Who for 16 years and was at the helm when the Daleks made their first appearance

Christopher Barry, who has died aged 88, directed many notable television series, ranging from science fiction to historical dramas and literary adaptations. At the heart of his work was a 16-year association with Doctor Who.

It began in 1963, with the inaugural appearance of the Daleks – the metallic creatures who would become the most enduring monsters in the show's history. Of Barry's remaining stories with the first Doctor, William Hartnell, The Romans (1965) was an exercise in knockabout comedy, and The Savages (1966, though now lost) a thoughtful morality tale.

When ill health compelled Hartnell to hand over the part of the Doctor to Patrick Troughton, Barry worked closely with the incoming actor, who was initially unsure how to play the part. The resulting adventure, The Power of the Daleks (1966, though again lost...

Sad news from the Doctor Who family today. Via Doctor Who News, we learn of the death of prolific classic-era director Christopher Barry at the age of 89. How important was Barry to creating the legend of the show? Doctor Who News:

Barry joined the Doctor Who team in the late summer of 1963, when he was assigned to direct the second story, The Daleks, replacing Rex Tucker who had left after artistic differences with producer Verity Lambert. The script he would bring to life would see the introduction of the Daleks and ensure the success of the fledgling series. Barry would end up directing episodes 1,2,4 and 5 of the story, creating the ‘sink-plunger’ cliff hanger at the end of episode 1 which would see the nation on the edge of their seats until the full revelation of the Dalek machine in episode 2.

That important. Barry would go on to direct some of the most-loved serials,...

Doctor Who director Christopher Barry has died, aged 88.

Barry began his TV directing career in the 1950s and helmed some of Doctor Who's most iconic episodes.

The longest-serving director on the original run of Doctor Who, Barry's credits include the Daleks' first appearance in 1963's 'The Dead Planet'.

He also directed Patrick Troughton's first outing - 1966's 'The Power of the Daleks' - and Tom Baker's debut - 1975's 'Robot'.

Barry's final Doctor Who work was 1979's 'The Creature from the Pit', and he was also renowned for his work on Z Cars, Poldark, All Creatures Great and Small and The Tripods.

Since retired, Barry was residing in Oxfordshire at the time of his death.

News Louisa Mellor 10 Feb 2014 - 10:28

Christopher Barry, noted director of classic Doctor Who and countless other series, has passed away at the age of 88...

We're sad to learn that director Christopher Barry, who directed over forty episodes of Doctor Who between 1963 and 1979 alongside a great deal of much-loved television work, has passed away at the age of 88.

Christopher Barry was one of the rare Doctor Who directors whose work on the show spanned four Doctors, including stories with William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker. His first Who episode was 1963's The Dead Planet, part of the first Dalek serial that famously introduced the planet Skaro and the Thals. Sixteen years later, Barry's final Who serial was 1979's The Creature From The Pit featuring Tom Baker.

In addition to Doctor Who, Barry took the helm on over thirty episodes of Z-Cars, as well as several instalments of All Creatures Great And Small,...

Veteran character actor Ian Abercrombie died January 26th at the age of 77. A long time theater actor, it wasn’t until the late 1950’s that he begun work on both TV and film here. His second wind came in the late 1970s when he started working steadily in genre projects like the original Battlestar Galactica, Ice Pirates , Warlock, Puppet Master III, Twin Peaks, Army of Darkness, Adams Family Values, Babylon 5, The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Birds of Prey, where he played Alfred. He also provided voice work for Star Wars: The Clone Wars and last year’s Johnny Depp animated film Rango. His last projects include a recurring role on the recently ended Disney series The Wizards of Waverly Place.

His was born Christopher Samuel Youd, but he was known as a prolific author who published novels under the name John Christopher. His several science fiction novels including...

Word that “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” filmmaker Edgar Wright would be reuniting with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost to complete their “Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy” with “The World’s End” surprised many of us when the news arrived back at the beginning of May. All three creative minds have been very busy with a variety of projects since "Hot Fuzz," but with lensing set to begin in September, Wright and Pegg are beginning to tease out what fans can expect from their next collaboration.

Talking with go-to cinema periodical Empire in their native U.K., while the new film appears to be more mature than “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz,” Wright contends that “I would say it's darker, more personal and more silly." The movie is set to follow a pub crawl involving Gary King (Pegg) and four childhood friends (one of whom will be Nick Frost...

Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have come quite a ways together. Following the immense success of Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz, two comedic classics, Wright and Pegg are now big players in Hollywood (Pegg has roles in Star Trek and Mission Impossible, Wright wowed with Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and has Ant-man somewhere up his sleeve). Wright and Pegg are attempting to come full circle with the final installment of their Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy (also referred to as the “Blood & Ice Cream” trilogy) with the upcoming The World’S End. Until recently, the project had been shrouded with secrecy, but the newest issue of Empire featured a few words from Wright and Pegg that gives us some clues to their next adventure.

The movie follows Pegg, as Gary King, who goes on a pub crawl with four of his childhood friends (one of which, is of course,...

Having worked together on projects for years now such as quality comedy show 'Spaced' as well as hit movies 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Hot Fuzz' the already legendary Brit duo that is Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright took time out to sit down and chat with Empire Online recently about their new 'social sci-fi comedy' project 'The World's End'. Wright describes the project: 'I would say it's darker, more personal and more silly' and during the interview the couple also managed to name drop sci-fi authors John Christopher and John Wyndham who penned popular sci-fi novels 'The Tripods' and 'The Day Of The Triffids' respectively. Pegg who plays Gary King in the new project will be joined once again by 'Paul' co-star Nick Frost who plays the character Andy Knight. 'The World's End' will mark the final installment in their Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy (Aka the...

While everyone else is busy tending to their BBQ's, the fine folks over at Empire Online recently chatted with Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright about their latest film in a trilogy of comedies that started with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, entitled The World's End.

The film revolves around a pub crawl involving Gary King (Pegg) and four childhood friends (including Nick Frost as a character called Andy Knight), while a cataclysmic, possibly apocalyptic, event rages around them. But now Pegg tells Empire that the movie involves "a crawl through twelve pubs, culminating in the final one, which is The World's End."

Wright chimes in, "This is as much about where you grew up as the people you grew up with..." But while it seems that The World's End is more mature than either Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, he's keen to point out that "it's also very silly.

The new season of Game of Thrones is nearly upon us and its fans are expecting great things. But with a huge costly production like this there’s always the fear that the network, in this case HBO, will pull the plug if ratings start to slide. Thrones should be immune; it’s a proven success and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t keep getting bigger and better – and follow George R. R. Martin’s hugely popular series of novels to the end. But other shows have fared less well, being abruptly cancelled and often leaving the fans feeling thoroughly dissatisfied.

So, in a rather clumsy and backward toast to a hopefully long and prosperous run for Game of Thrones, we’ll take a look at the top 5 most disappointing TV cancellations.

It goes without saying that this piece contains spoilers – but all the shows have been cancelled,...

We first caught sight of writer/director Stuart Hazeldine’s claustrophobic thriller Exam nigh on a year ago, and after a limited (which we missed dammit) theatrical release we’re finally going to get to see this gem, as its heading for DVD and Blu-ray in the UK. Nominated for a BAFTA in the “Outstanding Debut” category at this years Brit gongs, Hazeldine is definitely one to watch in the future. Indeed he’s already been tipped to helm a live action reboot of John Christopher's The Tripods, but that’s a whole different bag of fanboy fun. Exam goes on sale June 7th. Synopsis: Eight talented candidates have reached the final stage of selection to join the ranks of a mysterious and powerful corporation. Entering a windowless room, an Invigilator gives them eighty minutes to answer one simple question. Tensions rise as the clock steadily descends towards zero,...

I'm a massive fan of the apocalypse fiction of British author John Christopher (Aka Sam Youd). Have been for a long time. Even though his writing has a tendency to lean more towards the Ya end of storytelling (read: "The Tripods Trilogy") his tales of survival are often told in a refreshingly frank and brutal style.

That's why I was excited to hear that a joint venture between Lago in Germany and Cherry Road Films (the folks behind Southland Tales) would give one of his most beloved novels, "Empty World", new life on film. The man given the task of adapting it? American director, Lucas Howe, who luckily for us, is as much a fan of the novel as we are:

"For the screenplay, I've tried to hold true to the source material as much as possible. I got to know Sam Youd (John Christopher) during the course of optioning...

Garfield Morgan was a leading British character actor in films and television. He made one of his final screen appearances as an ill-fated elderly farmer in the 2007 zombie horror film 28 Weeks Later.

Morgan was born in Birmingham, England, on April 19, 1931. He attended drama school in Birmingham and began performing on the local stage in the early 1950s. He became a prolific television actor later in the decade, with roles in such series as Out of This World, The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre, Undermind, The Saint, The Baron, Out of the Unknown, The Avengers, Department S, My Partner, the Ghost, Paul Temple, and The Persuaders. He was featured as Tao Gan on the ancient Oriental mystery series Judge Dee in 1969, and was the slave master in the 1985 television adaptation of John Christopher’s juvenile sci-fi novel The Tripods: The City of Gold and Lead.

Morgan also appeared in a handful...

Stuart Hazeldine ("Exam") has apparently completed the screenplay for a film adaptation of John Christopher's classic British sci-fi novel trilogy "The Tripods" and indicates Alex Proyas ("Knowing", "Dark City") is aiming to produce and potentially direct according to Digital Spy. The story follows three teens fleeing from alien conquerors dwelling in three-legged machines who enslaved humans with mind-control devices implanted in the brain. A previous BBC TV adaptation in the 1980's gained a cult following but was cancelled after its second season, failing to bring the last of the books to the screen. Hazeldine indicates his script is based on the first book alone and should the film be a success, the plan is to adapt the remaining two....

Quite a favourite show for Cult Spy, and not only for its phobia-inducing nature, The Tripods was abandoned by the BBC in 1985 when plans to adapt the final book of John Christopher's trilogy were scrapped. This was a harsh call, as the second season vastly improved on the first, which included far too much chateau-based padding in the middle with barely a three-legged foe in sight. In some ways, it was a victim of its own ambition, particularly on a visual level. While the Tripods and their city were imaginatively and superbly designed, the filming methods used by the BBC couldn't give them the right scope or texture on many occasions. Given the absence of the trilogy's final part on television, the final words mournfully uttered by the heroic young lad Will Parker have taken on extra significance. "Has it all been for nothing?" he said with a trembling...

Alex Proyas, a favorite here among us for his excellent Dark City, is talking about his latest project “The Tripods” based on the novels of John Christopher. The Tripods was also made into a British BBC series back in the 80’s but was canceled before they made it to the conclusion. Lets turn to our good friend wikipedia for enlightenment on what these Tripods exactly are and how they will wreck havoc on mankind. The story of The Tripods is post-apocalyptic. Humanity has been conquered and enslaved by “the tripods”, unseen alien entities who travel about in gigantic three-legged walking machines (the unsophisticated humans believe the walking machines themselves to be their living overlords). Human society is largely pastoral, with few habitations larger than villages, and what little industry exists is conducted under the watchful presence of the tripods. Lifestyle is reminiscent of the Middle Ages, but artifacts from previous ages are still used,...

Rumours of a movie version of John Christopher's celebrated Tripods novels have been persistent for several years now, with various directors attached and then detached from the project. Disney-owned Touchstone Pictures nabbed the rights in the late '90s, but the whole enterprise languished in development hell until Variety reported in early 2005 that Ned Kelly director Gregor Jordan was slated to mastermind the big screen resurrection of the three-legged alien invaders. It wasn't to be. As news dried up, the frustration was felt most by fans of the classic mid-'80s BBC version of The Tripods, which was cruelly axed after two mostly fantastic seasons with the last book in the trilogy unfilmed. A nation of children who feared cappings, Black Guards and dreamt of the White Mountains were left without a visual resolution to the ambitious tale. However, (more)...

Director Alex Proyas (Dark City, I, Robot, Knowing) told Sci Fi Wire that his upcoming film adaptation of John Christopher's young-adult sci-fi series "The Tripods" will be the first of an envisioned trilogy of films. "We've done a draft; we're basically at the first-draft stage of Tripods, and we're about to go into our second draft," said Proyas. "Pretty happy with the script; I think it's come a long way. ... We're only doing the first book, The White Mountains, and the notion is, obviously, that it will hopefully be a trilogy. But we'll probably just be shooting the first movie independently." The film is based on the first of three "Tripods" books (the other two are The City of Gold and Lead and The Pool of Fire), about a post-apocalyptic world ruled by giant three-legged alien machines who place a mind-controlling "cap" on children when they near the age...

While director Alex Proyas is still fully entrenched in post-production on his upcoming film Knowing, he spoke briefly with ShockTillYouDrop about two more projects he has in development: Dracula Year Zero and The Tripods. As we reported last year, Dracula Year Zero is an origin story for the legendary vampire, while The Tripods is a post-apocalyptic story where humanity has been conquered and enslaved by aliens who travel in giant three-legged machines based on the series of novels by John Christopher. Proyas had the following to say about the two projects, either of which could end up being next for him. "I'm not a fan of remakes or sequels — I haven't done any and I'm not really that excited by them usually. In the case of Dracula, the reason I got excited about the project is I read a particular script that puts the whole legend on ...

ComingSoon.net/ShockTillYouDrop.com just got off the phone with filmmaker Alex Proyas ( The Crow , Dark City ) after talking briefly about his upcoming sci-fi thriller Knowing , starring Nicolas Cage. Proyas has been hard at work in the post-production of the film, but we wondered if there'd been any progress on the two other films he'd been developing, The Tripods , based on the series by John Christopher, and Dracula Year Zero , a proposed origin story for Bram Stoker's legendary vampire. Both are still in active development so either could be Proyas' next project. "I'm working on a bunch of different things and the two projects I'm excited about are an adaptation of John Christopher's The Tripod stories that I've co-written with Stuart Hazeldine, who is one of our...

ComingSoon.net/ShockTillYouDrop.com just got off the phone with filmmaker Alex Proyas ( The Crow , Dark City ) after talking briefly about his upcoming sci-fi thriller Knowing , starring Nicolas Cage. Proyas has been hard at work in the post-production of the film, but we wondered if there'd been any progress on the two other films he'd been developing, The Tripods , based on the series by John Christopher, and Dracula Year Zero , a proposed origin story for Bram Stoker's legendary vampire. Both are still in active development so either could be Proyas' next project. "I'm working on a bunch of different things and the two projects I'm excited about are an adaptation of John Christopher's The Tripod stories that I've co-written with Stuart Hazeldine, who is one of our...