Starring
Adelaide Kane (Power Rangers RPM)
Megan Follows (October Faction)
Torrance Coombs (The Originals)
Toby Regbo (The Last Kingdom)
Jenessa Grant (The Handmaid’s Tale)
Celina Sinden (The Retreat)
Caitlin Stasey (I, Frankenstein)
Anna Popplewell (The Chronicles of Narnia)
Alan van Sprang (Star Trek: Discovery)
Recurring / Notable Guest Cast
Jonathan Keltz (21 & Over)
Amy Brenneman (88 Minutes)
Michael Therriault (Heroes Reborn)
Anna Walton (Hellboy II)
Rossif Sutherland (Haven)
Lola Tash (Molly Maxwell)
Katie Boland (Long Story, Short)
Luke Roberts (Holby City)
Amy Forsyth (The Path)
Shawn Doyle (Impulse)
Yael Grobglas (Supergirl)
Ted Atherton (Max Payne)
Amy Forsyth (Channel Zero)
Daniel Fathers (Snatch)
Greg Bryk (Bitten)
Zoe Cleland (The Communist’s Daughter)
Kimberly-Sue Murray (V-Wars)
Hannah Emily Anderson (The Purge TV)
Andrew Gillies (Mutant X)
Kathryn Prescott (Tell Me A Story)
Andrew Airlie (Fifty Shades of Grey)
Amy Groening (Goon)
Giacomo Gianniotti (Grey’s Anatomy)
Gil Darnell (Bones)
Ari Cohen (Smallville)
Tahmoh Penikett (Battlestar Galactica)
Shauna MacDonald (11.22.63)
Geordie Johnson (The English Patient)
Sarah Winter (Versailles)
Thor Knai (The Outpost)
The creators and writers for “Reign,” a popular CW series, must have been fans of the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, because they chose to ignore history and follow the more fantastic (and yes, enjoyable) path. Rather than chronicling the actual rise of Mary, Queen of Scots, starting with her arrival in France as a 15 year old, this 2013 series veers unapologetically from true events to create a suspenseful intrigue on the order of the old Masterpiece series “I, Claudius.” Mothers scheme to elevate their sons to power, kings take concubines, and poison looms as large as the sword.
Yet, this slickly costumed series also has a contemporary vibe, with all the teen/twentysomething glam of a “Gossip Girls” or “Charmed.” The women, for example, have a deliberately modern look to match the contemporary soundtrack. Instead of fair-skinned lasses, you get several spray-tanned beautiful people who look like California models.
But the funny thing is, you accept the terms that this show offers, because the characters are interesting and the plot keeps you hanging. It all plays out like the popular ABC series “Once upon a Time,” but with a little more blood and violence. People get beheaded, and in a variant scene from the Godfather trilogy a stag’s head is placed in a prominent character’s bedchamber. Pagans hang sacrificial victims by their heels and slit their throats. And while “Reign” doesn’t celebrate the violence like many TV series do, it’s still an essential part of the plot. Sex, too, though there’s more sexual tension and sexual seethe than there is actual sex, and when it’s depicted it’s tastefully done.
Set in the court of the King of France, “Reign” offers a cast of characters who aren’t short on charisma with or without clothes. The lead actress, Adelaide Kane, does a fine job as Mary, Queen of Scots, with just the right blend of privilege and teenager wanting to break free. The two actors who play the heir to the throne (Toby Regbo) and his “bastard” half brother (Torrance Coombs) also have great screen presence. And Alan van Sprang as King Henry II and Megan Follows as Catherine de’ Medici are compelling in every scene they’re in. I won’t say they steal the scenes, but there’s at least a little minor shoplifting involved.
The real Mary, Queen of Scots became queen six days after she was born, with Scotland ruled by regents until she reached adulthood. The real Mary was betrothed to the Dauphin Francis and sent to live in France when she was only five years old. There she would remain for the next 13 years. In “Reign,” the premise is that the promised ones romped and played as children and now Mary returns to the French court as a young adult at a time when the English throne is up for grabs, and Henry wants to push her into claiming her right to that throne so that she and his son can together rule France, Scotland, and England. Typical mindset of the wealthy or aristocratic, isn’t it? Not satisfied to rule just ONE country?
The real Mary was accompanied by four other Marys, all daughters of Scottish noblemen. Here the names have been changed for obvious reasons, but it gives the series a core of five glamorous young women for audiences to identify with, and two handsome men. No wonder “Reign” was one of the most popular shows in the young adult age group.
I love this series and still watch it even though its canceled. Adam Kane developed the mutants, but did so only to help mankind. He was searching for to be able to manipulate DNA to help cure diseases. But in some, their genes mutated, giving them mutant abilities. You can tell throughout the episodes he feels responsible for all the problems connecting with mutants. Shalimar is a feral- who is like a cat. Adam brought her in from abuse when she was a child and helped her to cope with her abilities.
Through all the episodes, you see a father-daughter relationship with the two. Brennan- shoots electricity through his hands. He is a street wise guy who was a thief. Now turned straight, he sometimes struggles with not just “taking down” his opponents. He has a problem with not being in charge and not in all the loops, but Adam slowly helps him to start calming down. Emma-controls minds. She is soft and quiet and strives to feel needed. She feels close with people they are often after, giving another side for who they are after. Jesse-turns into brick and “phases” letting things go straight through him. He comes from a rich family and wants to prove he can fight. He is very smart when it comes to computers.
The newest edition in the end is Lexa- maipulate light. She has a dark past and a good reason for it. She has a habit of keeping the others outta the loop, but learns there is no room for that. She tends to keep people at arms length because of her past and is pretty much hated for it. But as time goes on, she learns to grow more and to trust. This series is very good, the action is great, actors are great and you can feel compassion for the characters.
Mutant X was a brilliant, and totally original, syndicated series that had genre fans tuning in faithfully week after week. Drawing from the timely topic of genetic research and engineering and experimentation on human DNA, Mutant X tells the completely original story of a group of outcasts with genetically engineered super-human powers and abilities and their attempts to evade capture or destruction by the ultra-secret, evil government agency which created them.
Mutant X is the highly litigated syndicated series, created by comics veteran Howard Chaykin (writer for Earth: Final Conflict and Viper) and Avi Arad (executive producer of X-Men). With a totally straight face, they insist that this new show has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the X-Men. Both of these guys know the comic industry and Arad obviously is familiar with X-Men, and yet they expect us to believe that cashing in on the popularity of the X-Men wasn’t in their minds at all while developing this series. They can’t even seem to recognize the similarity. Heck, forget similarity. Try blatant rip-off.
The main difference in plot line deals with the fact that the powers that the Mutant X mutants possess were a result of human intervention through science rather than a naturally-occurring genetic mutation, as in the X-Men. Apart from this very minor difference, the sky is the limit when it comes to Mutant X – X-Men similarities. The leader of the Mutants is Adam, a wealthy scientist who headed up the government project that created the Children of Genomex (a.k.a. the Mutants). He has seen the error of his ways and now is engaged in a crusade to locate, protect, and train the Mutants. He doesn’t actually own a school or have mutant powers himself, but this is the Professor X of the group.
The leader of the evil, covert government agency is Mason Eckhart, played by Andy Warhol as himself. This guy, complete with white hair and chunky glasses, wants to either use the Mutants for evil purposes or see them all destroyed. He’s sort of the Magneto of Mutant X without the overwhelming desire to see the Mutants rule the earth. Eckhart doesn’t have any super powers, unless you count just plain being evil, but his right hand man has telekinetic abilities.
Very few actual Mutants were introduced in the premiere and even fewer of their powers were revealed, and just to make sure that no one mistakes Mutant X for the X-Men, these mutants have code names. Shalimar Fox (a.k.a. Shadowfox) seems to have Dark Angel type powers, stemming from animal DNA manipulation, yet that doesn’t explain all the apparent levitation she does. Jesse (a.k.a. Synergy) has the power to control his molecular density, which means that he gets all misty when he allows a car to pass right through him and has a more crackly appearance when he becomes solid enough to stop bullets in their tracks. Emma (a.k.a. Rapport) has telempathic abilities revolving around the sensing and sending of strong emotional images. Brennan (a.k.a. Fuse) can send out electrical blasts from his hands.
If you’re interested in the whole genetic mutant outcast kind of story, I suggest that your time would be better served either renting the X-Men movie or picking up some of the multitudinous X-Men comics out there. Marvel knows how to do the stories and characters right, since, after all, they are the ones who created the idea in the first place.
Liam, the Taelons, and the Jaridians have disappeared but their efforts, far from saving everyone, have doomed the galaxy: they have awakened the Atavus, a race of energy vampires that preceded the Taelons and Jaridians. Renee and Street are the only ones who know the truth of what’s happening: the Resistance is disbanded and the human governments are in no rush to accept the beginning of another war with an alien race. Their only ally is Raj’el, the first and now the last of the Taelons, who is forced to provide covert support from the heart of the Taelon mothership.
To make matters worse, Sandoval, left in control of the Taelon mothership, allies with the Atavus leaders Howlyn and Juda. Together, they are able to keep their presence hidden for much of the season. Their plan is to create an army of Atavus-Human hybrids by means of a joining process, then use the hybrids to awaken other Atavus hives hidden around the world. As the season progresses, a few familiar faces re-enter the fight: William Boone is brought back as a trap for Renee, but he quickly joins her side. In response, Sandoval and Howlyn revive Zo’or, giving him a new body as a female Atavus, but Renee and Boone are able to defeat their nemesis once and for all. Final Conflict comes to a head when Liam returns to help Renee stop Howlyn from unleashing his elite warriors from the long-buried Atavus mothership. At the end of the series, Liam, Renee and Raj’el depart in the Taelon mothership, resolving to bring the few trustworthy Atavus home and indulge in a little adventure along the way.
Season 5 was universally despised by most fans, this was because of the lost of da’an and Liam, bringing in new aliens in the final season was a bold move. Alan Van Sprang joining the cast as Howlyn was brilliant and it allowed Renee to take centre stage. the final episode was a satisfying conclusion, leaving just enough rope to dangle just in case they continued.
At the beginning of the new school year in the fall, Lux forms a secret relationship and short lived romance with Trip Fontaine (Josh Hartnett), the school heartthrob. Trip comes over one night to the Lisbon residence to watch television and persuades Mr. Lisbon to allow him to take Lux to the upcoming Homecoming Dance by promising to provide dates for the other sisters, to go as a group. After winning Homecoming king and queen, Trip persuades Lux to ditch the group and have sex on the school’s football field. Afterwards, Lux falls asleep and Trip, becoming disenchanted by Lux, abandons her. At dawn, Lux wakes up alone and has to take a taxi home. Several years later, Trip will admit to wrongfully abandoning Lux, but ironically confesses that he has never gotten over her. 
Before Manny Coto took over as head writer of Enterprise in the fourth season, he had his own SF show on the air. Odyssey 5 was Coto’s brain child, and it was an intriguing program that lasted for only one season on Showtime. (Less actually… it took Showtime a couple of years to broadcast the last four episodes which are included in this set.) It certainly deserved to go on longer. This show about a group of five astronauts who have only five years to save the Earth from destruction was creative and engrossing and had some wonderful actors in the lead roles. The US space shuttle Odyssey was performing a routine mission, snagging a satellite for repairs before docking with the international space station when something very unexpected happened. The Earth imploded. In a matter of moments the Earth went from a blue/green planet to a swirling cloud of dust. The only people who were left alive were the five members of the Odyssey: Commander Chuck Taggert (Peter Weller) and his son Neil (Christopher Gorham), Nobel Prize winning geneticist Kurt Mendel (Sebastian Roche), newscaster Sarah Forbes (Leslie Silva) and shuttle pilot, Angela Perry (Tamara Crag Thomas.) With no place that they can go to they resign themselves to their fate and wait to run out of oxygen.
Moments before the end comes however, the Odyssey is taken aboard an alien spaceship. There they meet The Seeker, an ancient being (machine?) that has been searching for intelligent life. He’s found evidence of many advanced cultures, but whenever he gets to the planets he’s detected, all that’s left is a swirling cloud of dust. The Seeker offers to send the five astronauts back in time five years, so that they will have a chance of averting whatever it was that caused the Earth to die. Naturally they accept but five years isn’t a long time, and they have very little to go on.
They soon discover that there are incredibly intelligent entities living in the internet called Sentients. They have no bodies, since they are just computer code, but they have designed artificial people to carry out their bidding. These ‘Synthetics’ are stronger and faster than real people and can be programmed just like a computer. The only external difference from humans is that they are cold blooded. Trying to discover what the Sentients and Synthetics are up to is hard and dangerous, but it’s even worse than that; there’s no evidence that they are responsible for the Earth’s destruction. It could very well be related to a military project that was on the satellite the shuttle was adjusting, related to the covert group inside NASA known as the Cadre, or something else all together.
This is one of those shows that starts off a little slow, but really draws you in. One of the things I really liked about the show was that they didn’t forget that the Odyssey 5 have home lives. When Taggart skips out on a party his wife had been wanting to go to (in order to stop a Synthetic plot), he not only ends up in the dog house but she also thinks that he has a mistress. Sarah spends a good amount of time taking her son to doctors so they can cure the stomach cancer that killed him in the original time-line. The only thing is that it hasn’t shown up yet and her husband and doctors think she’s crazy. It’s touches like these that add a lot to the feel of the show.
The ensemble cast is responsible for that to a large extent. All five of the main characters do a very good job portraying their idiosyncratic characters and make them seem like real people. Peter Weller (Buckaroo Banzai, Robocop) has the temperament and attitudes of a military pilot down pat, probably because his father was a pilot (as he discusses in the commentary), but in any case he really nails the part and gives the show it’s focal point. Sebastian Roche also does well as the goofy but brilliant scientist, walking that fine line between making him a caricature and a believably irreverent character. The one person in the cast who impressed me the most though was Leslie Silva. She was magnificent as a mother who had seen her child waste away and die, only to get him back again. You could tell what she was thinking by just a look, and the scenes where she would break down were heart wrenching. This is an enjoyable show. The acting is very good and the plots are engrossing. Though there isn’t a lot of continuity in the first few episodes they refer to past events more and more as the show goes on, which makes the program even more interesting. A fun show that deserved a longer run.
The team is rather more imaginatively put together than in most similar shows. The team leader (Enrico Colantoni) is the cuddly negotiator whilst two bullet headed middle-aged men (Hugh Dillon and Michael Cram) are his subordinates. They have similar but different home lives and chat through raising teenagers on the way to work. A black junior policeman (Mark Taylor) and an Italian junior policeman (Sergio di Zio) have minor roles but occasionally get their moment in the limelight and both rise to the challenge when they do. David Paetkau plays the ex-special forces sniper who has transfered in. His difficulties integrating and changing his focus from killing to resolving the situation are well handled and his dark back story is mercifully not as overblown as it easily could be. The last team member is Amy Jo Johnson (the only american on the cast) who is the beautiful woman who has to struggle to maintain her position on the team.
Each show starts with a quick introduction to a perilous situation and then winds back a few hours to see how the problem started. We then build up to the point where police must start making life and death decisions. There are a few running storylines throughout the shot, but most episodes can be seen as standalone.
The Show lasted five seasons and does bring us to a satisfied finale, only season one is available on DVD in the UK but many imports can be found on various sites.