Update on Christina Cole

[orokiah]

Poirot: Appointment with Death, in which Christina Cole appears as Dr Sarah King, is being shown on Christmas Day at 9pm on ITV1.

I caught this earlier in the year on DVD (although this episode hasn't been shown in the UK until now, it's aired overseas and has been available on both DVD and iTunes here) - it deviates markedly from the novel, but it's still hugely enjoyable; a great soundtrack too. It's well worth watching.

[orokiah]

Christina is apparently adding to her genre credits with a role in The Time Machine: Morlocks, an original movie for the SyFy channel based on - surprise surprise - The Time Machine. Robert Picardo (Voyager/Stargate: Atlantis) and David Hewlett (Stargate: Atlantis) are also starring.

Doesn't seem to be much information out there about this yet, but a bit of googling uncovered this blog entry by an actor who's also appearing in the film and talks about it and the cast at length:

owentdavis.blogspot.com/2009/12/week-12-timer.html

[fenris]

Jan 18, 2010 18:31:11 GMT orokiah said:

Christina is apparently adding to her genre credits with a role in The Time Machine: Morlocks, an original movie for the SyFy channel based on - surprise surprise - The Time Machine.

Thanks for this info, orokiah. Interesting that the actor says in his blog that Morlocks is a sequel to the 2002 movie version of The Time Machine. I wonder if this is official, or is he merely assuming? (For example, when a SyFy film called Doomsday - starring Colin Salmon - was filmed last year, many on the internet leapt to the conclusion it was a sequel to Neil Marshall's movie of the same name that was released in 2008. In fact there was no connection whatsoever with Marshall's film.) I believe that Well's original novel is out of copyright and in the public domain, and therefore anyone can make a film based upon it.

Over the last few years, Original SyFy movies (ie: films that are commissioned by and/or debut on SyFy before moving onto DVD) have become notorious for mostly being unimaginative and unsophisticated monster movies that are over-reliant on cheap and unconvincing CGI. But over the last few months several SyFy films have received better-than-expected reviews from Fangoria magazine and various genre websites (The Asylum are also now making movies for SyFy - Megafault being a recent example - and in my opinion their output is constantly improving). Let's hope that Morlocks continues the trend.

I've seen two of the previous film adaptations of The Time Machine;
Simon Wells' 2002 version was dismissed by many, but personally I like it and believe that it's much under-rated.
I only saw the George Pal-produced 1960 version for the first time last year, and although it's unavoidably dated (no pun intended) I could see why it's held in such high regard. What particularly struck me was the casual racism, and I couldn't decide whether it was supposed to be ironic or not. George - the name given to the Time Traveller in the movie - arrives in the far-future expecting to find an advanced human civilization. When he encounters the Eloi, he (initially) becomes disappointed and angry because they are uneducated, sheep-like and unable to fend for themselves. Ironically, the Morlocks are the advanced civilization that George was looking for. They operate machinery and live in a vast underground city - but because they're ugly (by our standards), blue-skinned, and ape-like, George immediately decides that they're monsters and must be fought against. True, the Morlocks eat the Eloi, but they also feed them, clothe them and let them have contented, peaceful lives, free of any need or want. In fact, the way the Morlocks look after the Eloi is more caring and humane than how modern man treats his livestock. And as for the charges of cannibalism, while the Morlocks and the Eloi are both descended from homo sapiens, they have evolved over several million years. If you look back far enough, you'll probably find that man, cows, sheep, and pigs all share a common ancestor amongst the earliest mammals.
There's a third version I've not seen, an American made-for-television movie from the late Seventies with John Beck as the Time Traveller. Apparently, in a bizarre attempt to cash-in on the runaway success of Star Wars, the Morlocks in this version are equipped with light-sabers!!

[orokiah]

Both of Christina's appearances in Agatha Christie dramas are being reshown by ITV3 in the next couple of weeks: Marple: The Murder at the Vicarage airs on 17/02/10 at 7.55pm, and Poirot: Appointment with Death is on 21/02/10 at 9pm.

[orokiah]

Christina Cole and Jemima Rooper have done a photoshoot for the second issue of Outre Magazine, as part of a feature on Britain's up and coming actresses. There's also a short interview with Christina attached to the page (she's on p20, Jemima's on p21):

bit.ly/ay45z2

[orokiah]

Christina's IMDB profile has been updated with the news that she's guest starring in a forthcoming episode of Human Target, 'Victoria', playing the title character. According to Target419, the character is a princess who Chance is assigned to protect.

Hopefully not a bitchy, snobby princess like so many of her other roles, but we'll see...

[orokiah]

Casino Royale is being repeated on ITV1 this Saturday (20/03/10) at 9.30pm, for anyone interested in catching Christina's short but sweet incursion into the land of Bond.

[orokiah]

The relevant bits from the press release for 'Victoria', Christina's episode of Human Target:

CHANCE IS HIRED TO PROTECT A PRINCESS ON "HUMAN TARGET" WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7, ON FOX

Chance is hired to protect a member of the British royal family whose decision to abdicate the throne for the love of a commoner has her marked for assassination the in the all-new "Victoria" episode of HUMAN TARGET airing Wednesday, April 7 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. (HUM-111) (TV-14 V)

Cast: Mark Valley as Christopher Chance; Chi McBride as Winston; Jackie Earle Haley as Guerrero

Guest Cast: Christina Cole as Princess Victoria; Erick Avari as Gerard; Kavan Smith as Nathan; Rey Valentin as Tony; Sean Carey as James; Mackenzie Gray as Templeton; Robert Lawrenson as Prince Walter; Christopher Heyerdahl as Connor; Josh Blacker as Nigel; Patricia Drake as the Queen; Jason Diablo as Francis

Source

[orokiah]

The promo trailer for the Human Target episode 'Victoria', which features Christina rocking a fetching new look:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuimx1joKCo

[fenris]

Liking the raven bob and matching eye-shadow emo look. It makes Christina look vaguely similar to Christina Ricci. Thanks for posting the link, orokiah.

[orokiah]

What A Girl Wants, which marked Christina's film debut, is being shown on Five this coming Sunday (11/04/10) at 4.15pm.

[fenris]

Mar 13, 2010 12:35:48 GMT orokiah said:

Christina's IMDB profile has been updated with the news that she's guest starring in a forthcoming episode of Human Target, 'Victoria', playing the title character.

Human Target is receiving it's UK debut this week, when it begins (with a double bill of episodes) on Wednesday (14/04/10) at 22:00 on the Sci-Fi channel... or, to be completely accurate, the channel formerly known as Sci-Fi. One week after Zone Horror was rebranded as simply 'Horror', Sci-Fi is being renamed 'SyFy' from tomorrow (13/04/10). Why they're making the change on a Tuesday is anyone's guess. The re-titling follows the American version of the Sci-Fi channel undergoing an identical re-naming several months ago.

[fenris]

'Victoria', the episode of Human Target in which Christina guest-stars as the titular character, has it's first UK screening on Wednesday 16/06/10, at 22:00 on SyFy.

[fenris]

What A Girl Wants is being repeated on Fiver this coming Saturday (03/07/10) at 17:50, and again on Sunday (04/07/10) at 13:30.

[orokiah]

If her IMDB page is to be believed, Christina is guest-starring in tomorrow's (22/09/10) episode of Midsomer Murders ('The Silent Land', showing on ITV1 at 8pm).

Bizarrely, the TV listings for the episode credit her as 'Christine Cole'. I'm assuming it's a misspelling and not a totally different actress.