Defiance executive producer Kevin Murphy sits down with Stephanie Leonidas (Irisa) and discusses Episode 5, The Serpent's Egg.
05/17/2013
Warehouse 13 Renewed For Fifth (and Final) Season
Syfy today announced that its long-running flagship series Warehouse 13 will return for a fifth and final season of six episodes in 2014. Said Mark Stern, President, Original Content, Syfy, and Co-Head, Original Content, Universal Cable Productions: “Warehouse 13 has been an incredible signature series for us. We are grateful to the loyal and passionate fan base and know that [executive producer/showrunner] Jack Kenny, his gifted creative team, and outstanding ensemble cast will give them an amazing finale season.”
Warehouse 13 airs on Syfy Mondays at 10PM (ET/PT), following the new hit series Defiance at 9PM (ET/PT).
Merlin Sneak Peek AND Second Contest!
Alas, it was a close call, but SciFiAndTVTalk was not the winner of last week's Merlin Twitter contest. However, one lucky reader has another chance to win this week's prize package - courtesy of the folks at Syfy - which includes the following: A Merlin Nintendo DS game, a Merlin's collector's pack, a signed 2013 Merlin calendar, a Morgana collector's figure AND a scroll map of Camelot - an ACTUAL PROP from the set (see photos above and below).
Below is a sneak peek for this week's all-new Merlin episode, The Drawing of the Dark, airing on Friday, May 17th @ 10:00 p.m. EST/PST on Syfy. In order for one lucky reader to win, we need EVERYONE reading this to do the following:
**Tweet this sneak peek post with the tags #Scifiandtvtalk & #DrawingoftheDark
In order to be one of two lucky winners, SciFiAndTvTalk needs to generate as many tweets as possible between now and Sunday (May19th). So watch the sneak peek below and then get tweeting! Many thanks for everyone's continued support of SciFiAndTvTalk and Merlin. Let's make this another win for SciFiAndTvTalk and one lucky reader!
05/16/2013
Matter of Trust - Interview with Continuum's Richard Harmon
Actor Richard Harmon. Photo by Kim Chan.
When two families come together as one, the outcome is not typically like what you may have seen growing up watching The Brady Bunch. Usually there are some ups and downs, at least initially while everyone is trying to get used to one another. That was certainly true on the hit Sci-Fi TV series Continuumand with the character of Julian Randol. His father Roland married Ann Sadler, and along with a step-mom, Julian gained a new step-brother, Alec. Although the family dynamic initially seemed OK onscreen, it did not remain so, as actor Richard Harmon, who plays Julian, explains.
‘When you first meet Julian and his father Roland [Michael Rogers], their relationship is as good as a father’s and son’s can be,” says Harmon. “That lasts until about halfway through season one of Continuum, when the two characters have a little bit of a falling out after Roland discovers that his son was involved in a riot that took place downtown. As for Julian’s relationship with his step-mom [Janet Kidder], she’s kind of buying into the whole family thing with him and his father.
“The only real odd man out in all this is Julian’s stepbrother Alec [Erik Knudsen]. The two of them don’t get along too well, and I think the main reason for that in the first season is that Alec is the one who’s not buying into this family and what Julian and his father bring to it. Alec is kind of off by himself and not buying into the whole anti-corporation thing, which is a big part of what Julian as well as his father and some of his father’s friends all strongly believe in.
“So I think that’s the reason why my character doesn’t trust Alec and doesn’t like him very much. Julian is noticing that his stepbrother’s ideals are really quite the opposite of his. Alec is very much into technology, whereas I don’t believe that Julian is all that pleased with where technology is taking human beings as a culture. In various ways it’s sort of desensitizing us, and Julian wants to bring it back to where it’s more of a person-to-person type of thing.”
Julian Randol (Richard Harmon) in Continuum's season two opener "Second Chances." Photo copyright of Shaw Media/Showcase.
In Continuum, Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols), a Vancouver CPS (City Protective Services) officer from the year 2077, takes an unexpected journey back in time to the present with a small group of escaped terrorists from an organization called Liber8. They are on a self-appointed mission to alter the past in order to prevent the world’s major corporations from taking over from government as the ruling body. Kiera teams up with police detective Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster) and techie Alec Sadler (Erik Knudsen) to find and stop Liber8. It turns out, though, that Alec has a huge role to play in future events, and so does Julian.
“The thing with my character is that he’s different this [second] season,” notes Harmon. “Looking back at last year, I’d describe him as being a little bit like a dog on a leash. Julian has this one thing on his mind – he hates the corporations because of what they do, which is completely understandable, but as soon as that leash was taken off him, he started to behave in a way that others probably would have said, ‘Hey, slow down a bit. Let’s not go so harsh right away.’
“My character’s dad in the first season of Continuum is also very anti-corporation, but he comes at it in more of a grassroots, non-violent type of way. By the end of season one, Julian has gone from that way of thinking that you don’t need violence to change everything, to thinking more like Liber8 and let’s use any means necessary to stop corporations.
“Julian is very passionate and driven, but at the beginning of season two, he’s somewhat more docile in his actions. My character really questions himself and if the decisions he made last year were the right ones,” continues the actor. “I enjoy playing Julian both ways. They [the show’s writers] take him in such a cool direction in the second season and I’m excited for everyone to see where my character goes.
Julian (Richard Harmon) resorts to drastic measures in season one's "Family Time." Photo copyright of Shaw Media/Showcase.
“The challenge, I guess, in playing him is that I had to do some research into corporate stuff because I wanted to at least appear like I knew what I was talking about. The other big challenge with him is that Simon Barry [series creator/executive producer] and everyone else on the show trust me more than I probably trust myself as far as when I’m handed a new script and I read what they want me to do.’ I think, ‘I don’t know if I can handle that action-wise,’ but they seem to have a great deal of trust in me, which is such a neat thing.
“I remember when I first read the pilot script for Continuum. Julian was maybe in one scene and he had two lines. I really didn’t know much about him, but on the first day of filming, Simon Barry took me aside and told me everything that I would do as Julian in the entire first season, and he never changed that even in the slightest. Not many people would take you into their confidence right off the bat like that and tell you all this stuff at once. That was a wonderful blessing for me, and Simon is obviously one of the nicest showrunners I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.”
Harmon’s onscreen journey as Julian takes an unexpected as well as adrenaline-fueled series of twists and turns in the penultimate episode of Continuum, Family Time.
“That’s where Julian and some of his beloved hooligan friends take his entire family hostage on their farm,” he enthuses. “This episode was so much fun to shoot. It was the first time I ever really got to work with Rachel and Victor. Most of my scenes in season one were with Erik, which was fantastic, and he’s in this episode, too. A couple of my actor friends were brought in to play Julian’s hooligan buddies, and we all had a blast working together.
Stepbrothers Alec (Erik Knudsen) and Julian (Richard Harmon) face off in "Family Time." Photo copyright of Shaw Media/Showcase.
“There were a couple of days where we filmed the scenes in which Julian’s father dies. They were fairly intense and I was pretty nervous about how everything was going to go. Fortunately, Simon Barry, Will Waring, who directed the episode, and I talked about it after every take, and they were incredibly supportive of what I was trying to do and telling me that it was the right thing. It was during this shoot that I thought, ‘These guys are too amazing. I’ve got to stick around on this show for as long as possible.’”
Julian’s drastic actions have equally drastic consequences, and in Continuum’s second season opener, Second Chances, he is in a very much different place. His change of circumstance has presented Harmon with an entirely new, and welcome, set of acting challenges.
“When I received the first script for season two and began reading it, I was worried about how I was going to step back into this role,” muses the actor. “In the second season, Julian is in jail and unsure of who he is as a person. That helped me a great deal because it gave me kind of a clean slate to take back on the character. Again, he’s unsure of what he wants now and if he has made the right decisions. Julian is actually more of a man in season two, but a confused one. I think that was a little easier for me to slip back into than if he was still a feisty young teenager.
“Simon Barry and his team are the best when it comes to writing for all our characters. I’m blown away when reading each new script. I got the most recent one a few days ago and could not believe where they’re taking Julian, and, again, it’s the issue of trust.”
Julian (Richard Harmon) finds himself in more hot water in Continuum's season one finale "End Times." Photo copyright of Shaw Media/Showcase.
Looking at the actor’s immediate family, it is no surprise he chose the career path that he ultimately did. His mother Cynde Harmon is a producer and former actress, his father Allan Harmon is a director, and his older sister Jessica is an actress. So it only makes sense that he decided to follow in their creative footsteps. However, while growing up, Harmon did have his eye on one or two other options for future employment.
“When I was young I wanted to be a police officer, but that didn’t really pan out for me,” he recalls. “I also wanted to play football for Notre Dame, which I would still like to do, but I don’t think I’ll ever get a chance to do that, especially because I don’t have the frame for it.
“Acting was something I started to do professionally when I was around 10 years old, and I really only did it because my older sister, who I look up to began to do it. Back then, it wasn’t something that I had a real passion for or especially enjoyed doing. It was just something to do. Then, however, I did a film called Trick ‘r Treat when I was 15. That was the first time I spent a lot of time on a set, and that experience totally change my mind. From then on, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else, and that’s when my career began getting better and better.
“If you truly love something and put all you have into it, I think you start to succeed a little more than if you’re just doing things haphazardly, and that’s how it was with me and acting.”
Julian (Richard Harmon) and Liber8's Travis Verta (Roger Cross) in Continuum's season two opener "Second Chances." Photo copyright of Shaw Media/Showcase.
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Dear Mr. Gacy, and Rufus are among the actor’s other feature film credits. On TV, he has appeared in a number of made-for-TV movies as well as guest-starred on a variety of series including Jeremiah, Da Vinci’s City Hall, Smallville, Fringe, Caprica, Shattered and The Secret Circle. Harmon also played recurring or regular roles on Tower Prep, The Killing and, currently, Bates Motel.
“We shot the pilot for Tower Prep right after I graduated from high school,” says the actor. “That was my first time playing a recurring role on a show and I got to stick around for a little bit. That was another instance where the writers did a great job of writing the scripts and developing the characters.
“The Killing was one of the best opportunities I’ve ever had so far in my career. It was also unlike any other experience I’d ever had up to that point as far as being on that set and working on that type of story. I would be in tears after reading those scripts. It’s such a dark show, but a really well-done one as well. There’s such a terrific group of people who run The Killing, and back then, AMC had become the new big cable station, so it was kind of nerve-wracking for me because I didn’t know if I was ready for a job like that. However, they were just so nice and supportive of the cast, including us younger actors, so that made it a lot of fun.
“With Bates Motel, the hardest thing for me with that role is that I was never one of the popular kids in high school, so at first I wasn’t quite sure what to do with my character. They [the show’s producers] wanted him to be this cool type of guy who other people would like to hang out with. He’s also a little overprotective of his girlfriend, but I think you would be, too, if Norman Bates was hitting on your girlfriend,” he jokes.
Richard Harmon (center) in Tower Prep.
The year looks like it will continue to be a busy one for the actor. Along with Continuum and Bates Motel, he recently completed a pilot for The CW network called The Hundred, which has been green-lit as a series. Set 97 years after a nuclear war has destroyed the civilized world, a spaceship housing what remains of humankind, sends 100 juvenile delinquents back to Earth with a mission to repopulate the planet.
“The script is incredible, the production values are unbelievable, and everyone in it is amazing,” enthuses Harmon. “I think audiences will have a lot of fun watching this show.”
Steve Eramo
As noted above, photo of Richard Harmon by/copyright of Kim Chan and all Continuum photos copyright of Shaw Media/Showcase, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
05/14/2013
This Week on Merlin - "The Drawing of the Dark" (Syfy US)
Alexander Vlahos as Mordred. Photo copyright of Shine Ltd. and FremantleMedia Entertainment.
A troubled Mordred must choose between love and loyalty – and ultimately decide the fate of a kingdom – in The Drawing of the Dark, an all-new episode of Merlin premiering Friday, May 17th @ 10:00 p.m. EST/PST on Syfy. This is the last standalone episode of Merlin before the epic two-part series finale, which airs May 24th and May 31st.
In The Drawing of the Dark, a Saxon attack on a Camelot supply convoy leads to Mordred to reunite with the love of his youth, a Druid girl named Kara. He helps her escape, but when she is caught and sentenced to death, Mordred is torn between his two worlds. Little does he realize that the path he chooses will shape Camelot's destiny.
As the drums of war beat ever louder, a desperate Merlin feels trapped by the cruel circle of fate: Is he powerless to stop his dreams for Albion from crumbling to dust?
After appearing in a few early seasons of Merlin as a young boy bound to Morgana and her dark magic, Mordred returned to the story in Season Five with both a new, loyal-to-Arthur resolve and a new actor playing the role: Alexander Vlahos.
Kara (Alexandra Dowling) and Mordred (Alexander Vlahos) embrace. Photo copyright of Shine Ltd. and FremantleMedia Enterprises.
“Mordred is a difficult problem for Merlin, because no matter how hard Mordred works to prove his loyalty to the king, Merlin knows what the future holds and the role Mordred is destined play,” says Colin Morgan, who plays Merlin.
“Mordred has become one of Arthur’s most trusted, able Knights, and a man of magic like Merlin,” Morgan explains. “So it’s difficult for Merlin to make decisions and act in the present on things that won’t happen until the future.”
The core Merlin cast welcomed newcomer Vlahos to the team quickly, and appreciated his dedication to preserving the groundwork of the first four seasons – and the foundation Asa Butterfield (Hugo) set down as the original actor portraying Mordred – while crafting a new story of his own.
“Alex is very clever,” says Katie McGrath, who plays Morgana. “He really did look at everything Asa had done and used that as a starting point to play Mordred. He was very conscious that Mordred is a very popular character, and he wanted to do him justice. But he has really taken that and made the character his own.”
As noted above, all photos copyright of Shine Ltd. and FremantleMedia Enterprises, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
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