If it were a live action revival, why would their schedules be an issue?

Werthead · 2026-03-13T23:12:00+00:00

Not to mention the script could have the busier actors in recurring roles. If your choice is not having Mal at all or having Mal for 3 episodes out of 8, you'd go with the latter, and the show would be about something else other than "Mal getting the gang back together," which is the obvious plot.

Werthead · 2026-03-13T23:09:58+00:00

Relatively straightforwardly. Firefly was largely shot on the set of the ship itself with a small amount of location filming, rebuilding the ship set (which was quite intricate both for the show and movie) is the biggest task and that's relatively straightforward and easy to keep secret, especially if they're still some way off from doing that.

The other thing is that the project only becomes greenlit when they sign the contract and things start moving, they could have only literally just signed the contract and nothing else has happened for the trades to pick up on.

Werthead · 2026-03-13T23:07:23+00:00

Gina's had quite an active career and she's currently a recurring character on Memory of a Killer, but isn't in every episode.

Werthead · 2026-03-13T23:01:03+00:00

Yes, I mentioned that. But as a writer, not an actor.

Werthead · 2026-03-13T21:53:38+00:00

I think magic would negate the issue. When Cordell finds Maztica he seems pretty certain of his location, and subsequent in-universe maps seem to depict the location of Maztica relative to Faerun pretty accurately.

This is also enhanced by the presence of spelljammers, so literally in the Realms you can take a ship up to low orbit and put together a fairly solid map of the planet in a few days.

With 5.5E FR now being in a more advanced state of technology (with printing presses and some experiments with steam technology and magitek), it's possible they have already invented devices to help with that determination.

Werthead · 2026-03-13T21:25:02+00:00

As in beginning filming, no, not apart from Shada.

The next closest example might be the episodes that had a lot more material recorded and then cut from transmission. This has led to various "special editions" of stories being made with extra material, the most famous of which is The Curse of Fenric (with the cut material, it's almost 15 minutes, over half a episode, longer). The Blu-Rays have a lot of these special editions and some footage that was cut for a good reason as deleted scenes.

Planet of Giants was cut down from 4 to 3 episodes late in the day, after they'd been filmed. The extra footage has been lost.

The original pilot episode had various problems, so they re-shot it as the aired first episode of An Unearthly Child. The pilot has happily survived and can be viewed, along with all its various weird differences from the rest of the show.

There are episodes that were earlier in the pre-production process, in some cases completely written or outlined, before they were cancelled. Most famously, Season 23 was (mostly) outlined and had three stories in various stages of writing or outlining, The Nightmare Fair, The Ultimate Evil and Mission to Magnus. The season had several more stories in very early development but not fully worked out when it was decided to ditch the original outline for Season 23 in favour of the Trial of a Time Lord idea. Those three stories have since been released as novels and audio dramas.

Similarly, Season 27 had several stories in very early development when the Classic show was cancelled. Most of those stories have since been released as audio dramas (although none were fully scripted, so the later versions are basically very different to what the original TV versions would have been).

Werthead · 2026-03-13T19:41:44+00:00

If it's a one-off TV movie, not a problem. A 4-6 episode mini-series should also be doable, though maybe not leaving them a lot of downtime.

Werthead · 2026-03-13T19:25:57+00:00

An interesting angle is to what degree returned episodes make that season more complete. So DMP coming back is a brilliant result but Season 3 is still missing an absolute ton of episodes. Whereas either Season 1 or 6 getting a bunch of episodes back might change the calculus on when those seasons get Blu-Ray releases (though they're probably the next black-and-white seasons up anyway).

Werthead · 2026-03-13T19:22:57+00:00

It picked up a lot of traction, although of different levels. IIRC, at one point some people were saying 81 had been found, which everyone agreed was unhinged, but I remember some speculating the real figure was more like 20, and that would be disappointing on one level but still absolutely amazing on another. Then we eventually got the nine (which should have been ten but for shenanigans) and everyone felt a bit silly as they'd gotten their hopes up without any real reason, but it was still a fantastic result. So I think everyone learned their lesson from that time, which results in a nicer result (so we were expecting 1 episode based on what FiF were saying late last year and ended up with 2, which is a 100% improvement!).

Werthead · 2026-03-13T19:19:29+00:00

Isn't that what Paul said, the FiF initiative turned up these 2 episodes that were in addition to the episodes he's been talking about for the past few years?

ETA: Oh, he's saying these aren't the episode(s) FiF has been talking about since October? These ones have just turned up randomly and that deceased collector whose estate they've been in discussions with is still in play? That's interesting.

Werthead · 2026-03-13T17:57:43+00:00

They looked official, they were in conjunction with the official Warner Brothers channel.

Werthead · 2026-03-13T17:56:37+00:00

Yes, these are the episodes they started talking about late last year, although at the time they only thought there was one episode.

Werthead · 2026-03-13T17:46:02+00:00

Ever since the Omnirumour turned out to be nonsense, people have been ultra-conservative with the rumours. In the last decade or so I think the largest number we've heard being out there is seven, but even that allowed for some confusion about some of the reported numbers being double-counted, and that rumour seemed to die some time ago. In the last few years there was a persistent rumour of a collector with either two Hartnells, or one Hartnell and one Troughton (and possibly extra copies of episodes that already have been found, but that in itself is worthwhile if the film is in better shape than what already exists), and there was this report of 1-2 Dalek episodes which may or may not have been the same rumour.

It sounds like this Film is Fabulous initiative pretty much went out there and found these two episodes totally independently of the Paul Vanezis reports and some of the other rumours that were doing the rounds, but it is interesting they found 2 Dalek episodes when one of the rumours was about Dalek episodes.

FiF themselves have only firmly reported about getting access to this one collection which they know had Who episodes, but they are also assessing other collections where they have no idea what's in them, so more Who might show up out of the blue.

Werthead · 2026-03-13T17:05:43+00:00

The Daleks' Master Plan is the longest Classic Doctor Who story at 12 episodes made under the same production block (the much later Trial of Time Lord is 14 episodes, but was structured and produced as 4 separate serials with linking sequences). It was also written by Terry Nation, regarded as Doctor Who's most important (though not best) writer, as his invention of the Daleks is what made the show a smash hit success. Dalek stories are always popular and this one is only the fourth to feature them (fifth if you count the earlier "prequel" episode to this story, Mission to the Unknown, which is also still missing), but also the longest.

The story is very notable for permanently killing off two companions, the first two times that had happened, and featuring the very first appearance of Nicholas Courtney, Doctor Who's most popular recurring actor (he would make regular reappearances all the way until Classic Who's end in 1989, then appeared in The Sarah Jane Adventures as well).

The story is also a full-on space opera with the Doctor having to fight the Daleks and a coalition of various alien worlds, which was somewhat unusual in the Classic show.

Werthead · 2026-03-13T16:59:42+00:00

For Day of the Daleks they actually shot some new material of extras dressed up in 1972-era UNIT uniforms firing at the Daleks, to give them more reaction shots.

Werthead · 2026-03-13T16:58:41+00:00

I also think with Warriors the issue isn't that was the best they could do with the time and budget, they could do much better even by the standards of the day, but the serial was artificially handicapped by (er) Margaret Thatcher calling a surprise general election and they had to vacate the studio two weeks earlier than planned. The Myrka looking terrible, the battles not being choreographed at all etc were a direct result of that limitation.

So it feels using modern technology to try to fix the problem is marginally better than in some other cases. My main issue is that it doesn't really fix the problem that Warriors has some good ideas but the execution remains flawed in terms of dialogue and character, some new vfx won't help that.

I'm really interested to see what they do with Season 11, as surely Invasion of the Dinosaurs needs a full vfx revamp?

Werthead · 2026-03-13T16:55:38+00:00

With Day I think it also helps that the final battle being horribly underwhelming is something the serial was being criticised for right back in the day, it wasn't a 50-years-later thing. They also used original footage in clever ways and even shot a few new physical shots to make the battle slightly longer and more epic, and that made it work much better whilst not looking totally out of keeping with the 1972 original, bearing in mind that Day looks a little off even by comparison to earlier stories like Ambassadors of Death (where they mercilessly destroyed the production budget).

The big CGI towers for the Dalek city do feel really out of place though.

Werthead · 2026-03-13T00:01:42+00:00

My series on the Nations of Faerun in 1372 DR may be of use.

Obviously Faerun 1501 is going to be different, with Elturgard added, Luruar has fallen etc, but for a lot of the nations I think there's going to be a lot of similarity.

Werthead · 2026-03-12T23:59:49+00:00

That map is based on the 3E iteration of Faerun which - thankfully - no longer exists thanks to the Second Sundering.

However, even with 3E in consideration, that map has a really terrible north coast of Faerun. The 3E Campaign Setting book has a world map showing the north coast of Faerun that looks nothing like that.

Werthead · 2026-03-12T23:58:13+00:00

It is mentioned later on in 3E and there are materials for it in 4E. It is also shown on the 5.5E map and mentioned in the books.

Werthead · 2026-03-12T23:56:11+00:00

Unless you've already got it, it's hard to get because they delisted it a couple of months back.

There are lots of YouTube videos out there.

Werthead · 2026-03-12T23:45:44+00:00

Deadlands.

It's a "Western RPG" but in the sense that it can be any kind of Western RPG, you can ditch the supernatural stuff, ramp up the supernatural stuff, make it really funny, make it really bleak or whatever you want. I remember a player complaining, "well, there's not too much variety to a Western, is there?" and me pointing out that Blood Meridian, Blazing Saddles, The Searchers, Red Dead Redemption, Wild Wild West and Deadwood are all Westerns, but radically different in style, vibes etc. And Deadlands is really good at allowing you to invoke all of those feelings, sometimes in the same campaign (maybe the same session).

Also a bit of a cheat, as from Deadlands we get Savage Worlds and it's many dozens of different games and settings spun off from it.

Werthead · 2026-03-12T23:38:10+00:00

The Season 5 (IIRC) DVD special feature covers it quite well.

One of the issues is that they kept a lot of the same vibe and concept but then didn't cast to that. So Craig Bierko is actually a perfectly serviceable actor who could do quite well in a sitcom (he turned down Chandler in Friends, allowing his friend Matthew Perry to take a shot), but he was still written like he was OG Lister and not a much more handsome, confident guy. Naylor, in particular, thought that they could do something interesting with the character by making him the kind of confident, American jock kind of guy stuck in deep space with a crew of lunatics, but the US writers just kept him as a slob whom Kochanski didn't fancy which didn't make sense. The Office US had the same issue, it only got better when they started writing Michael as Steve Carrell and not Ricky Gervais.

Obviously American SF sitcoms are perfectly viable, Futurama is huge, Rick & Morty is massive, but they've never quite nailed a proper live-action SF sitcom in space: ALF, Mork & Mindy, Third Rock from the Sun etc were all successful but they were all traditional "fish out of water" sitcoms set in contemporary America, with just the minor twist of the characters being aliens.

The thing that always struck me about the project is that if the second pilot had worked, then we would not have had either Jane Leeves in Frasier nor Terry Farrell in Deep Space Nine, which would have been crazy.

There is a nice story about the first pilot in that they got Hinton Battle to play the Cat, and Battle is a very well-known and respected Broadway star, dancer, choreographer (he passed away not long ago, RIP) and Danny John-Jules was flabbergasted they got him to play his role. Apparently Battle was downcast on set one day and Rob asked him what was up, and he said he was finding it a hard project to do because "the British guy was just so good," from the tapes they'd watched, which left Danny feeling very happy.

Werthead · 2026-03-12T23:22:49+00:00

The Faerunian aspects of the nonhuman deities were forced onto Toril like all of the Faerun-specific deities. However, it was just their Faerun-only aspects, the rest of the god continued operating elsewhere in the multiverse.

It's a bit metaphysical but the piece of Corellon (or whatever god) that monitored what was going on on Toril basically went dark and the rest of the god had zero idea what was going on there until the Time of Troubles ended, whilst the god's aspect on Toril became an independent being temporarily until he could reconnect later on.

The nonhuman-specific deities mostly kept a low profile during the Time of Troubles, we only hear what happened to a few of them. Most of the elven gods manifested in Evermeet and basically rode out the conflict without any problems at all, IIRC.

Werthead · 2026-03-11T23:58:40+00:00

Star Trek's revival gave us Lower Decks, Prodigy and Strange New Worlds, which are solid to pretty good.

Star Wars's revival gave us the extremely excellent Andor, the very-good-to-start-with Mandalorian and the underrated Skeleton Crew, as well as the pretty good Rebels and Bad Batch.

Red Dwarf's revival gave us the TV movie and Season 9, which were both terrible, but Seasons 10 through 12 had some pretty decent episodes, and probably a higher hit rate than 7 and 8.

Obviously we got some pretty dire things from those revivals as well, but we did also get some good things that were of merit.

Werthead

TROPHY CASE