The 92nd episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. Neal McDonough (Boomtown) guest stars in the fourth season finale.
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Actress Janet Waldo, the voice of Judy Jetson in the 1960s cartoon The Jetsons (as well as its 1980s revival) and the voice of Princess in Battle Of The Planets, dies at the age of 96. Her acting career began in the 1930s, and she was the star of the radio series Meet Corliss Archer in the 1940s and ’50s. She was also the voice of Penelope Pitstop, and Josie of Josie And The Pussycats fames, continuing to voice animated characters, appearing in person occasionally (on such shows as I Love Lucy and The Andy Griffith Show), and guest starred in episodes of the late 1970s radio series Alien Worlds. She worked regularly until 2012.
Actor Anton Yelchin, perhaps best known to genre fans for taking over the role of Ensign Pavel Chekov in the series of Star Trek reboot movies since 2009, dies in a freak car accident at the age of 27. Yelchin was already considered a rising talent because of his performances in Charlie Bartlett, Like Crazy, Hearts In Atlantis, Terminator: Salvation, and a remake of Fright Night (in which he starred opposite David Tennant of Doctor Who fame). His final movie as Chekov, Star Trek Beyond, is due to be released in July 2016.
NASA’s Juno space probe successfully pulls of a risky orbital insertion maneuver, slowing itself down just enough to be captured into an unprecedented polar orbit around Jupiter. Launched in 2011, Juno’s first close pass of Jupiter brings it within 3,100 miles of Jupiter’s cloudtops, the closest any spacecraft has ever approached the huge planet. Its polar orbit will allow it to reduces its exposure to Jupiter’s intense magnetic field, which is powerful enough in the planet’s equatorial regions to damage or destroy on-board electronics. Juno’s mission is expected to last 20 months.
Netflix premieres the eight-episode first season of Stranger Things, created by the Duffer Brothers (Wayward Pines, Hidden) and starring Winona Ryder and Matthew Modine. The series’ 1980s setting and comparisons to the works of Spielberg and Stephen King generate buzz both on the internet and off; the series’ younger cast members quickly become stars and Netflix greenlights a second season in the wake of the series’ successful release.
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The movie Star Trek Beyond opens in American theaters, having already opened overseas. Though still produced by J.J. Abrams, this third movie is directed by Justin Lin (The Fast & The Furious) and co-written by Simon Pegg, who also plays Scotty in the new movies. Idris Elba (Mandela: The Long Walk To Freedom, The Dark Tower The Wire, Luther), Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service) and Lydia Wilson (Misfits, Ripper Street) also star.
At an all-star San Diego Comic Con panel celebrating 50 years of Star Trek, Bryan Fuller, the showrunner of the upcoming series (announced in late 2015), reveals key details of the show: the series is titled Star Trek: Discovery, following the U.S.S. Discovery, NCC-1031, in a time period between the original series and the early 21st century prequel series, Star Trek: Enterprise. Test renders of the ship are shown, hearkening back to an abandoned Ralph McQuarrie redesign of the Enterprise from the never-made 1970s movie Star Trek: Planet Of The Titans. The series takes place in the “prime” timeline of all of the previous TV series, rather than the alternate timeline of the J.J. Abrams-produced movies since 2009.
Actor and radio talk show host Jerry Doyle, who played Security Chief Michael Garibaldi for the entire run of the 1990s science fiction series Babylon 5 (the only human character to survive the considerable number of cast changes from 1992 through 1999), is found dead in his Las Vegas home at the age of 60. After his final appearance as Garibaldi in the Babylon 5 TV movie A Call To Arms, Doyle joined B5 co-star Peter Jurasik in a recurring role in the final seasons of the Sci-Fi-Network-revived Sliders before a run for Congress on a Republican ticket, and becoming a conservative radio talk show host.
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Actor Barry Jenner, a fixture on American TV since the 1970s, dies at the age of 75. Among the many series in which he played recurring roles (among them Dallas, Knots Landing and Family Matters), genre fans remember him best for the role of Admiral Ross, to whom Captain Sisko reported in the final two seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He also appeared in such genre series as V and Starman.
British actor Kenny Baker, whose long career as a circus performer and comedian took a sharp right turn when he first stepped into the “costume” of R2-D2 in 1977’s Star Wars, dies at the age of 81 due to complications from a respiratory ailment he had suffered for several years. Even though the continuing march of technology meant that Artoo was increasingly played on screen by real remote-control robots, Baker did at least some work inside the droid costume in all seven Star Wars movies that had been released at the time of his death, one of a very few performers to span all three trilogies. He had also appeared in Time Bandits, Flash Gordon, and The Elephant Man, among other TV and film appearances.
Streaming service Amazon Prime Video premieres the pilot episode of a 21st century live-action remake of The Tick. Written and produced by Tick creator Ben Edlund, and starring Peter Serafinowicz in the title role, this pilot is part of Amazon’s annual Pilot Season event, and receives enough favorable votes for Amazon to order production of a full season of episodes to premiere in 2017.
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NASA’s Juno spacecraft completes its first orbit of giant planet Jupiter with an orbit-shaping manever that takes it as close to Jupiter’s cloudtops as 2,600 miles – less than the width of the continental United States – at a speed of over 100,000 miles per hour. Juno obtains the first close-up views of the north and south poles of the planet, revealing a roiling hotbed of storm activity unlike the poles of relatively quiet Saturn. In addition to photos, Juno scans the planet in the infrared and ultraviolet portions of the spectrum. This is scheduled to be Juno’s closest flyby of its entire mission.
Actor and writer Gene Wilder, whose uncanny comic timing made him the star of numerous Mel Brooks comedies as well as the unnerving lead in 1971’s movie adaptation Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, dies at the age of 83 from complications related to Alzheimer’s Disease. He was a regular part of Brooks’ all-star ensemble, starring in such movies as The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, and co-starred in numerous comedies with Saddles co-star Richard Pryor, including Stir Crazy, Bustin’ Loose, Silver Streak, and See No Evil, Hear No Evil.
With mere weeks left before the European Space Agency’s Rosetta space probe is shut down, the spacecraft’s gradually decreasing orbit allows it to see more fine detail on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, which is now outbound near the orbit of Jupiter. Rosetta’s surface survey finally reveals the fate of the short-lived Philae lander: as ESA engineers suspected in 2014, it came to rest on its side in a crevasse, preventing its batteries from recharging via its solar panels. Originally aimed at the Agilkia region on the larger of Comet 67P’s two “lobes”, Philae’s harpoon anchoring system failed to fire, leaving the lander to bounce helplessly into a ravine on the smaller lobe of the comet, in the Abydos region. It only relayed its surface findings to Rosetta for three days in late 2014. Rosetta would soon join Philae on the surface, with a surface impact scheduled for September 30, 2016.
NASA launches the unmanned OSIRIS-REx (Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer) spacecraft, bound for the asteroid Bennu, a target it won’t reach for two years. Once at Bennu, OSIRIS-REx is intended to orbit the asteroid and then drop down close enough to gather surface samples for return to Earth in a small sample container capable of surviving re-entry through the atmosphere. The samples from Bennu, an asteroid considered a hazard for Earth in the future, will not arrive until September 2023.
China launches its second space station, Tiangong-2, into orbit, ahead of a Shenzhou flight scheduled to carry the station’s first crew in October. Weighing over nine tons, Tiangong-2 is larger than its predecessor (which remains in orbit unoccupied, and believed to be losing attitude control), and is capable of being resupplied by uncrewed cargo vehicles called Tianzhou, similar to the Russian Progress vehicles that have resupplied Salyut, Mir, and the International Space Station. Plans at the time of launch call for Tiangong-2 to be visited by two crews.
The 62nd episode of the science fiction comedy Red Dwarf airs on UK cable/satellite comedy channel Dave, the beginning of Red Dwarf XI, the first full season of the show since its 2012 return. Kevin Eldon (Hyperspace) guest stars.
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Cable channel Disney XD premieres the 36th episode of the series Star Wars: Rebels. The third season opener guest stars Tom Baker (Doctor Who) as the mysterious Bendu, and reintroduces the character of Grand Admiral Thrawn (voiced by Lars Mikkelsen), originated in the 1991 novel “Heir To The Empire”, to the current Star Wars continuity.
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The 63rd episode of the science fiction comedy Red Dwarf airs on UK cable/satellite comedy channel Dave. Maggie Service (Hyperspace) guest stars.
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Cable channel Disney XD airs the 37th episode of the series Star Wars: Rebels. Tom Baker (Doctor Who) and Sam Witwer (Battlestar Galactica) guest star.
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Attempting to build a TV franchise onto the 1973 hit movie Westworld (and ignoring a previous attempted TV revival in 1980), HBO premieres the first episode of Westworld, starring Anthony Hopkins, Thandie Newton, Ed Harris, and Evan Rachel Wood. The series premiere of the spectacularly expensive, long-delayed show wins a large audience and a cult following.
The CW airs the 47th episode of The Flash, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ superhero starring Grant Gustin. This is the series’ third season premiere.
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The 93rd episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. Chad L. Coleman (The Expanse, The Orville) guest stars in the fifth season premiere.
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Commercial spaceflight operator Blue Origin, owned by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, launches its sixth New Shepard flight. To conduct a live test of survivability of the launch abort system, the capsule is commanded to blast free of its booster at Max-Q (the moment of maximum aerodynamic pressure on the combined vehicle). The uncrewed (but human-rated) capsule survives the simulated emergency separation and lands safely, but surprisingly, the single-stage suborbital booster also recovers from the stress of the abort test and lands safely near Blue Origin’s Texas launch facility. This is the fifth and final flight for the second New Shepard reusable capsule, as well as the fifth and final flight for the second New Shepard reusable booster. Flight tests will resume in late 2017 with a new booster and capsule.
The 64th episode of the science fiction comedy Red Dwarf airs on UK cable/satellite comedy channel Dave.
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Red Dwarf now streaming on Britbox
Cable channel Disney XD airs the 38th episode of the series Star Wars: Rebels. Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (Steven Universe, Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex) and Corey Burton (Alien Worlds) guest star.
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HBO premieres the second episode of Westworld, starring Anthony Hopkins, Thandie Newton, Ed Harris, and Evan Rachel Wood.
The CW airs the 48th episode of The Flash, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ superhero starring Grant Gustin. Ralph Hemecker (Witchblade) directs.
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The 94th episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. Chad L. Coleman (The Expanse, The Orville) guest stars.
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The 65th episode of the science fiction comedy Red Dwarf airs on UK cable/satellite comedy channel Dave. Stephen Critchlow guest stars.
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Red Dwarf now streaming on Britbox
