It’s Friday again (well, Saturday if you’re being technical) and time for a new episode of The Flickcast. Sadly, this isn’t an episode devoted entirely to the new Star Wars movie. That will have to wait until next week.

It is, however, a damn fine episode. Here’s what you can expect from it: Star Trek: Beyond!, X-Men: Apocalypse!, Independence Day: Resurgence!, Mr. Robot Season Two! And a whole lot more! Don’t worry, we’ll stop using exclamation points now . . .until next time.

Picks this week include Chris’ pick of the Showtime Documentary The Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs and Joe’s pick of the Syfy Channel mini-series Childhood’s End, based on the classic novel by Arthur C. Clarke. But if you don’t want spoilers, might want to wait to click on that link after you’ve watched.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship, or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook, Google+ or via email.

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Penny Dreadful, Showtime’s new series, has all the ingredients to become a cult sensation – a very weird cult sensation. I can just imagine the fan fiction this intriguing, but strange, horror show will produce. Set in Victorian England the series features Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), who is a spiritualist/medium of great power. Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett) is the American Wild West sharp shooter hired to help her and Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) who is combing the underworld of London to find his missing daughter, Mina. This world is filled with supernatural creatures, swathed in violence and psycho erotic moments, where psychic powers are real and everyone has a secret, or two.

John Logan (Skyfall, Hugo), who created Penny Dreadful and wrote all eight of the first season episodes, surrounds his characters with other literary legends: Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) and his monster/companion, along with dilatant Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney) all wander this macabre world. And in the second episode (Séance) we meet the wild, Irish prostitute Brona Croft (Billie Piper) who is entangled in both worlds.

The possible connections to other literary, historical characters and events are endless. This has made some critics suggest it’s too close to the premise of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman (the wonderful comic book series/graphic novels by Alan Moore/Kevin O’Neil, not the dreadful movie version.) This literary device has been used many times, but to me Penny Dreadful has more of a flavor of Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula.

The 65th Primetime Emmy Awards nominations were announced this morning by Aaron Paul, Neil Patrick Harris and Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Chairman/CEO Bruce Rosenblum at the Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre in North Hollywood, CA. The 65th Primetime Emmy Awards telecast will air live on Sunday, September 22nd (8 PM ET/5 PM PT) on CBS from the NOKIA Theater L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles.

Here are the major nominees:

Outstanding Drama Series

Breaking Bad • AMC • Sony Pictures Television

Downton Abbey • PBS • A Carnival / Masterpiece Co-Production

Game Of Thrones • HBO • Bighead, Littlehead, TV 360, Startling TV and Generator Prodns with HBO Ent

Homeland • Showtime • Showtime Presents, Teakwood Lane Prods, Cherry Pie Prods, Keshet, Fox 21

House Of Cards • Netflix • Donen/Fincher/Roth and Trigger Street Prods with Media Rights Capital for Netflix

Mad Men • AMC • Lionsgate Television

When we first heard about Showtime’s drama Homeland we have to admit we were a tiny bit skeptical. The truth is we had a bit of a hard time imagining Claire Danes as a CIA analyst gone rogue.

Fortunately, after watching the first few minutes of the first episode, we realized how wrong we were. She kills it, as do the rest of the cast, writers and everyone involved in this excellent show. Soon, the award-winning Homeland will be back for a second season and Showtime has released a new teaser for that season to help get you excited for it.

In it we see the return of our favorite cast members: Claire Danes is back in action, this time both as a blonde and a brunette, joined by Damian Lewis and Mandy Patinkin. Looks awesome and we cant’t wait.

Homeland season 2 premieres September 30th on Showtime. Click through for the video.

Fans of Chuck, the series that would not die (until it did) have probably been missing one of the best reasons to watch that show: Yvonne Strahovsky. Fortunately, the TV gods have smiled on us and will be giving us more of our favorite female super spy soon.

That’s right, the lovely Strahovsky will be joining Showtime’s Dexter in season seven for a multi-episode arc. She’ll play a “strong, independent woman” who helps Dexter and his colleagues with a few old cases — but Dexter thinks there’s something she’s not telling them. I’ll bet he’s right.

Of course, as we all know, Showtime is a premium cable network which often features a great deal of blood, violence and nudity/sex. Does this mean we’ll finally get to see more of Strahovsky than we’ve seen on those websites where they put celebrity heads on other nude bodies for fun? Not that we’ve ever gone there of course. . .

Whatever happens, this development is more than enough reason for us to take an interest in Dexter again. Kudos Showtime. Kudos.