This is the 2010 Spring-Summer Mid-season Update to the wonderful world of network and cable television shows for the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres. not that I will be able to keep up with all of them, as last fall has proven. My apologies, but this second recession in my life that has kicked me so badly in the stones ... I am guaranteed to never spawn my own children. In fact, I currently have only one channel I am able to get on broadcast television: ABC. Thank the Gawds for Hulu, as it has helped me catch up to most television, and even keep up with the new stuff this summer:

ABC cancelled all but one of it's new genre shows: Eastwick, Defying Gravity and most recently Flash Forward and Happy Town. If you, like me, never saw the remaining 5 episodes for Defying Gravity, it is available now on DVD. However, V has been picked up to continue it's invasion upon humanity. And, of course, LOST finally found some closure, for better or worse. ABC does have a couple of new shows for us to hope for: The Gates, not your ordinary neighborhood ... unless you are accustomed to living next door to werewolves and vampires. Which leads me to the new fall series, No Ordinary Family ... a title that pretty much sums it all up, except instead of monsters, this mild-mannered family has discovered they now possess super powers following a plane crash during their last vacation. Both sound fairly light-hearted, fun faire ... we'll see if ABC can hang on to them.

CBS ditched a horde of shows of thier own, including Ghost Whisperer, so all that remains is the NBC refugee, Medium, renewed for a seventh season.

NBC is keeping Chuck, thank gawd, but Heroes got the axe and is not coming back for a fifth season (if we are very very lucky, creators and fans will get a chance to wrap up the saga with a movie or mini-series event). Merlin has been passed down to NBC's bastard child, SyFy Channel, and renewed for a 3rd season, but us Hulu fans are still waiting for Season 2. The aftermath of the apocalypse series, Day One, remains in some sort of bizarre state of limbo ... but it doesn't look like we'll even get to see a two-hour movie, much less a series from it (what the hell do you do with a series that has been shot, yet never airs?). However, we are currently getting the new chiller, Persons Unknown, which appears to be my fav new show of the year. Come fall, NBC will premiere two new promising series: The Event, a massive intense conspiracy thriller (hell, the promo gave me chills), and the good cop turned wrongfully accused criminal turned into his son's favorite comic book superhero, The Cape (yeah, I know it looks Dark Knight-ish, but is that really so bad?). 

Snag, Bag and Tag.

... continues the task for the paranormal relic keepers at Warehouse 13.

The second season opener on SyFy channel involves a change-of-the-guard for villainy, as the power-hungry MacPherson is thwarted, but not before releasing H.G. Wells from her bronze prison at the warehouse ... and no, that wasn't a typo, H.G. Wells is actually a woman in this story. I won't get into the hows and whys of it all, as perhaps some of you haven't seen this new series from SyFy. But, it looks like H.G. Wells will be this season's nemesis for the crew at Warehouse 13.

For the basics of this series, and it's kooky characters ... read on ...

The premise of NBC's new summer filler, Persons Unknown, is very familiar: Abduct a group of seemingly unconnected strangers, have them wake up in some remote place, and let them try to either work together find a way out ... or force them to kill each other off to win their supposed freedom. This infamous cat-and-mouse game has been told and re-told in various venues and genres: the never-ending SAW franchise, the cult scifi indie CUBE films, and of course, the classic tv series, The Prisoner. And since the ABC series, LOST, has finally found some closure, folks may feel right at home with Persons Unknown (although, there is no plane crash, mysterious island, or a thousand other things that should never be compared to this new series). I wanted to post this on the All 4 Horror website, because I felt like this was the creepiest television show I have seen in quite sometime. And not surprising, as the creator for Persons Unknown is non other than Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote one of the finest mystery films of all-time, The Usual Suspects. And if you are wondering if the hairs on the back of my neck stood up while watching the premiere, just as it had for the aforementioned shows and The Usual Suspects ... the answer is HELL YEAH!

If you haven't seen the first episode, the following contains spoilers ...

WHAT DID YOU SEE?

Executive Producer David S. Goyer might get pissed at me for saying that his new ABC series, FlashForward, IS science fiction.

While the new series is only loosely based on the novel by Robert J. Sawyer, and the explanation of what caused every living human being to blackout for exactly 2 minutes and 17 seconds may or may not be the same as the book. Ummm, having the entire planet passed out at exactly the same time, only to wake up with a vision of their own future 6 months in the future, or not (you see your future if you are dead in it) ... sure sounds like science fiction to me, regardless of the cause. So, forget any preconceptions of the science fiction label being a death sentence to a new tv series. And BTW, WTF were they doing at comic con promoting the new series, if it wasn't science fiction ... hmmm?

ABC's Lost is science fiction and very successful, despite what ever fears the show will end next year without a proper explanatory conclusion. BattleStar Galactica (new one) was a successful science fiction tv series. Alias - successful. X-Files - successful. I could go on with a list of very successful science fiction television series, just as I could with fantasy or horror shows.

So, I said it, and stand by it ... FlashForward is a science fiction tv series. Then again, it might end up being fantasy, with the cause of the global blackout the work of naughty little magical faeries! Or, maybe it's horror, as Lucifer and his minions give us all a glimpse into the upcoming apocalypse ... oh wait, CW is already knee deep into demons and armageddon with the show Supernatural.

Enough of my babble, let's check out the story ...