Want to see a UNC School of the Arts alumnus take on a killer shark? Tune in at 9 p.m. Sunday on SyFy, formerly known as the Sci Fi Channel (channel 42 on Time Warner Cable), for Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus, with Cooper Harris in a supporting role.
Harris, a 2006 graduate of the School of Drama, co-stars in the campy action film with Lorenzo Lamas as a military strategist and Deborah Gibson as an oceanographer. They join forces when two prehistoric sea monsters, a Megalodon (an enormous shark) and a giant octopus, emerge from hibernation and begin to wreak havoc. The solution: Find a way to pit the two beasts against each other.
"I play the sonar technician under Lorenzo Lamas' command," Harris said in an e-mail interview this week. "My role was originally three different characters that they combined into one as we shot. I monitor the killer shark's activity."
The movie made its debut Saturday on SyFy. Sunday's repeat will be part of a marathon that also includes such films as Spring Break Shark Attack, Deep Blue Sea and Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy.
Earlier this year, Harris appeared in Dough Boys, a BET Entertainment film, and on the Web site BarelyPolitical.com, where she interviewed participants at the San Diego Comic-Con comic-book convention. And she is staying busy with other roles.
"I'm also currently shooting a vampire series for Comedy Central's Web site," she said. "It's totally been my sci-fi summer -- diving into Mega Shark, hosting at Comic-Con and now shooting my third vampire role. I feel I've been submerged in ‘geek-chic' and can't wait to do more."
An animated short by Sam Boger, a second-grader at Calvary Baptist Day School, will be shown Thursday on national television.
Sam, 7, created the short using a Web application on qubo.com called Zimmer Twins. The application allows kids to use templates to tell their own stories about twins Edgar and Eva Zimmer and their pet black cat, whose name is 13. Sam's short is called "13 Goes Wild." It follows 13 as he is accidentally transported into the jungle and turned into a gold statue.
The original version of the one-minute cartoon can be seen at zimmertwins.com/node/655740. The broadcast version, with vocals added and a few seconds snipped out, will be shown on ION TV (channel 16) at about 3:10 p.m. Thursday as part of the channel's daily kids-programming block. It will be repeated several times a day for the next week.
The 2009-10 TV season doesn't start in earnest for several more weeks, but CW and Fox are starting some of their shows early. Next week, CW viewers will get the season premieres of the teen drama 90210 (8 p.m. Tuesday), America's Next Top Model (8 p.m. Wednesday) and Supernatural (9 p.m. Thursday); and the series premieres of Melrose Place (9 p.m. Tuesday) and The Vampire Diaries (8 p.m. Thursday).
Fox will bring back So You Think You Can Dance at 8 p.m. Wednesday, followed at 9 p.m. by the season premiere of Glee, which made its debut last spring. The pilot episode of Glee will be repeated today at 9 p.m. on Fox with streaming tweets along the bottom of the screen from cast members.
The first season of the HBO series The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency came to DVD this week. It is a richly textured drama with Jill Scott as a woman who sets up a detective agency in Botswana to help her neighbors with their problems -- big or small.
The series is filmed in Botswana, which adds to its realism and distinct look.
Also new on DVD this week: the first season of the sitcom The Game; the second season of the British version of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares; the third season of Brothers & Sisters; the fifth season of Desperate Housewives; the sixth season of Two and a Half Men; and the ninth season of C.S.I., which is also available on Blu-ray.
■ Tim Clodfelter can be reached at 727-7371 or at tclodfelter@wsjournal.com.
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