Black Sails
Blu-ray l DVD
CREATORS: Jonathan E. Steinberg, Robert Levine
DIRECTORS: Neil Marshall, Sam Miller, Marc Munden, T.J. Scott
WRITERS: Jonathan E. Steinberg, Robert Levine, Michael Angeli, Heather Bellson, Doris Egan, Brad Kane
STARRING: Luke Arnold, Toby Stephens, Hannah New, Zach McGown, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Tom Hopper, Mark Ryan, Clara Paget, Toby Schmitz, Louise Barnes
Anchor Bay Entertainment
RELEASE DATE: January 6, 2015

I’m terrible at watching TV shows. Just awful. New ones often come around that I really want to check out, and before I know it multiple seasons have come and gone. Seriously—it feels like time travel at times.

Being a huge fan of pirates (I even enjoy the Pirates of the Caribbean movies most people aren’t so fond of), Black Sails on Starz was one such show that immediately piqued my attention but got away from me. This is thanks in part to its fairly brief maiden voyage (season one is only eight episodes). But thankfully I was able to check it out on Blu-ray, and with season two having just kicked off recently, I’m happy to finally be on board.

Warner Brothers is setting themselves up to have a big Fall TV season with pilots in the works for three new shows: The Flash, Gotham, and Constantine. We’ve already had a few reveals this week on The Flash and Gotham, and now we get the first official look at actor Matt Ryan in his role of John Constantine for the upcoming NBC show.

Check out the full photo of Ryan as Constantine here below.

Constantine follows the escapades of John Constantine, an occultist and con-man who occasionally helps people against demons and other supernatural forces. Judging from this image, it looks like the producers of the show, Daniel Cerone (The Mentalist) and David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight) and director Neil Marshall (Game of Thrones) have found an actor who at the very least looks like his comic book counterpart.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is another one of those long-gestating projects that refuses to go by the wayside. The premise of a lone survivor of a ship named the Demeter that was suppose to transport a mysterious – but also dangerous – cargo from Transylvania to England has a lot of promise. David Slade was originally attached to direct the film with Prometheus star Noomi Rapace and Ben Kingsley talking the lead roles.

However, that never came into fruition. Now Neil Marshall (The Descent, Doomsday) is sitting in the director’s chair, and it looks like Viggo Mortensen could possibly take the lead role of Henry Clemens.

Game of Thrones
Season Two, Episode 9 – Blackwater
Directed by Neil Marshall
Written by George R.R. Martin
Starring Mark Addy, Alfie Allen, Emilia Clarke, Liam Cunningham, Charles Dance, Stephen Dillane, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Fairley, Aidan Gillen, Jack Gleeson, Iain Glen, Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Conleth Hill, Carice van Houten, Harry Lloyd, Richard Madden, Patrick Malahide, Rory McCann, Sophie Turner, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Maisie Williams, and Issac Hempstead-Wright

I feel like the phrase ‘event television’ is a bit of a misnomer. Very few shows ever fully rise to that title. In fact, the only show I feel that’s ever fully risen to event TV is Lost. After a new episode, it was talked about for days on end.

I don’t think there’s a show that’s lived up to those expectations and level of hysteria and hype. The most recent Game Of Thrones episode, “Blackwater,” is the answer to those expectations.

For weeks now, HBO has been building up this ninth episode to be this epic event. Stories have been told about the production behind it, how HBO gave extra money for this episode specifically in order to make sure it was done properly, thus creating a legend equal to the episode itself.

Hollywood has always been captivated by the romance of a vampire, although recent incarnations of the character have been focusing on the glitz and glamor of the blood-sucking being. Now The Descent director Neil Marshall hopes to bring back the glory days of the vampire Dracula by helming the long-gestating The Last Voyage of the Demeter.

Bragi Schut‘s decade-old script is an adaptation of Bram Stoker‘s novel Dracula that centers on the large sailing vessel the Demeter on its fateful journey transporting Dracula from Transylvania to England. If you know the story of Dracula, then you’re aware that things don’t go as planned on the trip, and when the ship washes ashore in a condition opposite of when it departed, only one survivor is aboard.