Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

It’s been a busy few weeks for Lara Croft. One of gaming’s two premier treasure hunters is making her way to live action TV for the first time, with Sophie Turner in the lead role and Phoebe Waller-Bridge showrunning. Not only do we have the first official look at Turner as Croft, but we’ve also got a lot of really exciting additional casting,.

That still first. Lara Croft’s iconic design is all right there, from the ponytail to the red circular shades and double holsters. What I like about this is that they’ve opted for more on the functional side of things than the cheesecake that dominated the earlier games especially. The holsters and harness all look well used and plausible and Turner’s not running around ancient tombs in a cut-away leotard. We’re not close to the grimy, traumatised avenger of the later (and excellent) games but as middle ground goes this is going to make everyone the right levels of happy. Aside from the folks who’ll hate it, but hey, maybe that’s what actually makes them feel happy? God knows something must.

The rest of the cast are just as much fun as Turner. Jason Isaacs, beloved in these parts for Death of Stalin, Event Horizon and so much else will play the splendidly named Atlas DeMornay, Lara’s uncle. The legendary Sigourney Weaver will play Evelyn Wallis, a ‘mysterious, high-flying woman who is keen to exploit Lara’s talents’ and who screams patron and or secret bad guy to me.

Bill Patterson, the patron saint of character actors is Winston, Lara’s butler. Paterson’s a Waller-Bridge alum, having appeared in nine episodes of Fleabag so I suspect we’re looking at more of the Chris Barrie combat butler incarnation than the doddering tea tray pilot of the earlier games.

Next up is Martin Bobb-Semple as Zip, Lara’s loyal tech guy. He’s best known for All American: Homecoming and this looks set to be his breakout. Team Lara is rounded out with Jack Bannon, best known for his superb work as cheerfully violent young Alfred on Pennyworth (right). He’ll be playing Gerry, Lara’s pilot and snack collector.

Further down the cast we have the always excellent John Heffernan, a frequent flier with Big Finish as David, an ‘exhausted government official who finds himself tangled up in Lara’s unusual world’, which screams ‘Handler’ to me. Also on deck is Celia Imrie as Francine ‘Head of advancement at the British museum.’ Imrie is a legend you’ve seen in a dozen things and she’ll be great here, I’m sure.

Paterson Joseph, another all-time great, is playing Warner, ‘a senior government official’ who I’m betting will be David’s boss and intriguingly Sasha Luss as Sasha, a rival of Lara’s. You’ve seen her before in Latency and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets among others.

Finally we’ve got Juliette Motamed as Georgia, a curator at the British Museum and August Wittgenstein as Lukas, ‘an illegal raider’ who looks set to be another rival of Lara. You’ve seen Wittgenstein in Das Boot and The Crown among others.

That’s a big cast for a big show. It’s in production now and given the talents involved, this should be a good one.