Week of the Geek 5/20/17

Welcome to Week of the Geek! There are quite a few cool new releases, trailers, and announcements to look at this week, so let’s get to it!

Television

The first trailer for the upcoming television series Star Trek: Discovery was released this week. The trailer Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham disagreeing with her commanding officer on how to deal with the hostile Klingon. This series differs from its predecessors in that the main character is the First Officer of the ship, rather than the captain. Star Trek: Discovery will premiere this fall on CBS before moving to the station’s subscription service for the remainder of the season.

In an announcement that came seemingly out of nowhere, this week fans learned that The Witcher is getting a Netflix series. While most American fans are familiar with The Witcher as a series of fantastic video games, they are actually based on a Polish book series by Andrzej Sapkowski, who will also be serving as a creative consultant for the Netflix series. No release date has been set yet, and we’re also not sure if the series will be CGI or live-action.

As if we weren’t excited enough for the Ducktales reboot, this week we found out that Lin-Manuel Miranda will be joining the cast as Gizmoduck. Miranda said in a press release that the character is being tweaked to have Latin roots, something he always wished to see on television as a child. Miranda joins David Tennant, Danny Pudi, and Bobby Moynihan in the show’s cast. The show doesn’t premiere til this summer, but has already been picked up for a second season.

The Dark Crystal is returning as a Netflix series! Froud’s dark fantasy art came to life in the original movie thanks to Jim Henson, and the Henson Shop and Froud have teamed up with Netflix to make the magic again. The show will be called Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and will be a prequel to the original movie. No release date has been set yet, but fans seem to be excited, especially considering the teaser seems to show that Netflix intends to stay true to the puppetry showcased in the original.

Snowpiercer is getting a television adaptation thanks to TNT, and we learned this week that the post-apocalyptic series will star Daveed Diggs of Hamilton fame. Diggs will play Layton Well, who lives in poverty in the back of the train while the rich upper class controls the front. There is no release date for the series yet, but the talent on board is pretty impressive; in addition to Diggs, Scott Derrickson (director of Doctor Strange) is Executive Producer and Josh Friedman of The Sarah Connor Chronicles is showrunner.

Movies

Sony announced Saturday that Tom Hardy will be the star of their upcoming Marvel movie, Venom. The movie has been in development for almost ten years, and many fans seem skeptical about how Sony will pull off the Spiderman-related movie now that the rights to Spiderman himself have shifted to Disney and the MCU. However, having a name and a main character — Eddie Brock — means the movie must at the very least finally be shifting out of development hell.

Other

Destiny 2 premiered its first gameplay trailer, revealing some really impressive-looking interactions and showcasing the ever-snarky Nathan Fillion as Cayde-6. Bungie also announced plenty of other information, including changes in gameplay and carry-over options. The game is set to release on September 8th of this year, but Beta signups are already filling up for early access.

Big news, Doctor Who fans: Ten and Rose are back! Well, audibly. Remember last week, when Big Finish announced a new Torchwood drama? Turns out they’re also producing three new Doctor Who audio dramas starring David Tennant and Billie Piper. Sure, it’s not on-screen, but I’ll take what I can get! The three stories will be available in November.

One last thing! I have the pleasure of going to Momocon next weekend, which means Week of the Geek will likely be delayed until Sunday or Monday. Sorry! On that note — if you’re going to Momocon and are a Geek Maker who would like to be featured in a future Week of the Geek, shoot me a message in the comments below!

Thanks for joining me for this Week of the Geek! I don’t have a Geek Maker feature this week (though I highly recommend checking out last week’s with Wyrmwood Gaming if you missed it!) so I’ll leave you with this, in honor of that last story: the official Doctor Who Spotify account, including plenty of audio dramas!