Jumping ship
Black Sails star Toby Stephens is to pull on his space suit and take command of the Jupiter 2 in the Netflix reboot of the iconic science fiction series Lost in Space. The reboot will also star Taylor Russell, who will play daughter Judy, and Maxwell Jenkins, who will play son Will. The original series, from producer Irwin Allen, was a space-age take on The Swiss Family Robinson, in which a family aboard a colonisation ship bound for Alpha Centauri are thrown off course after take-off when the mission is sabotaged. The reboot will take a darker tone more in line with the original series' first season, in which the family become stranded on an alien world. The reboot is being written by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, and produced by Zack Estrin. Netflix will launch the series in 2018.
Young revolutionary
Australian actor Aden Young will star in a new series for the cable channel USA Network titled Damnation. USA is surfing a wave of attention on its scripted slate recently, following the success of its flagship drama, Mr Robot. Damnation is set in the 1930s and is described as "an epic saga of the secret history of the American heartland". Young will star in the series as Seth Davenport, "a man with a violent past and a secret ambition to lead a revolution against American industrialists", The Hollywood Reporter noted. The series also stars Sarah Jones, Chasten Harmon, Christopher Heyerdahl, Melinda Page Hamilton and Joe Adler. Young's most recent credit was the critically acclaimed drama Rectify, which aired on Sundance in the US and SBS in Australia. Damnation has not yet secured an Australian broadcaster.
M.I.A. Maggie Smith
Dame Maggie Smith, whose absence from this year's Emmy Awards was noted repeatedly by host Jimmy Kimmel, has fired back a charming retort to his suggestion that she would have to show up to get her award. Smith has been nominated five times for the Emmy for her work on Downton Abbey, and won four times, but never attended in person to collect the statue. "We're not mailing this to her," Kimmel said. "Maggie, if you want this it will be in the lost and found." PBS, which airs the series in the US, later published a response from Smith in which the 81-year-old actress said she "graciously accepts" the win. "I feel the Emmys have been overly generous to me," Smith said. "If Mr Kimmel could please direct me to the lost and found office I will try and be on the next flight."
Cunning Fox
The removal of disgraced Fox News chief Roger Ailes may have been a boon for the commercial fortunes of the enterprise, with its audience figures lifting after the scandal. 21st Century Fox chief executive James Murdoch told the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference that in the wake of Ailes' exit, "from a ratings perspective, [Fox News] has been stronger than ever". Despite the perception that Ailes was an entrenched force within the rolling news network, Murdoch said "the business is bigger than any one person". Murdoch also flagged a desire to shift theatrical releases onto other platforms earlier than the industry holdback of three months, and signalled that the rise of linear channel streaming services in the US such as Sling TV and Playstation Vue, which stream channels not individual shows, will build momentum for that sector.
