Daisy Ridley demonstrates her lightsaber skills

Daisy Ridley (Rey) demonstrates her prowess with a lightsaber in this video posted on her official Instagram.

So @liangstunts (TRAITOR) is WUSHU FRICKING MASTER and I always try to get him to teach me things... This was today!!! Obvs not great but HE'S amazing and he's also featured at the end 😄😄😄 our stunt team are the most incredible group of people, so lucky I get to train with them!

A video posted by @daisyridley on Apr 25, 2016 at 10:37am PDT

The Star Wars actress was put through her paces by Chinese martial arts expert Liang Yang who played FN-2199 AKA TR-8R in The Force Awakens and launched a thousand memes.

Star Wars: Episode VIII will be released in theatres December 2017.

AMC spoils The Walking Dead and ignites fan fury

AMC's Facebook page whipped up a frenzy of anger from fans when it posted a major spoiler for the mid-season finale for The Walking Dead S5 before the episode was aired around the world. The company has subsequently apologised.

Again, this highlights the subject of spoilers and it's worth pointing readers to a series of blog posts, co-written with Andrew Lewin, in which we discuss Doctor Who and Game of Thrones amongst others.

I'm not going to spoil the mid-season finale for fans who've yet to see it. However, this series, despite the occasional creative misstep, has been audacious. February seems so far away...

R2-D2 announces official Star Wars Tumblr

The force is strong with Tumblr!

R2-D2 announced the official launch of Star Wars on the social media site. This is only weeks after Disney launched an official Instagram account.

A statement on the site reads: "Artoo is pleased to announce the launch of our official Tumblr!"

"We promise there won’t be any cat videos… except maybe a Nexu or two."

Star Wars Episode 7 director JJ Abrams recently spoke about the decision to delay the film’s release date back from summer 2015 to December 18, 2015.

JJ Abrams told MTV: "Before I even came on to the project they were talking about 2015," he explained.

"And they made this announcement very early on, which I understand. But it didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the reality of where anything was creatively.

Abrams added: "A release date is great, but you have to release something great. To me, the new release date is a huge improvement."

Star Wars joins Instagram: Darth Vader posts selfie!

Darth Vader captures a selfie during the original Star Wars in 1977.

Star Wars: Episode VII maybe two years away. However, Disney's marketing machine has embraced Instagram in the run-up to the new trilogy. Fans will be hoping for some sneak peeks.

The infamous Sith Lord appears to be holding an iPhone!

"We're gonna need a bigger chopper."

SyFy's Sharknado, a cult monster movie and social media phenomenon, premieres on UK television this Wednesday.

Unlike Steven Spielberg's seminal blockbuster Jaws. This shark tale is best viewed with copious amounts of alcohol and fast food.

Continuum comment read out on SyFy!

During last night's high-octane episode of Continuum S2, on SyFy UK, I was surprised and delighted to hear my tweet read out on air during an ad break:

"... Continuum evokes fond memories of watching The X-Files..."

This typifies social media engagement at its best. Viewers can use the hashtag #Continuum during and after the show to continue the conversation with actors, producers and fans of the series.

For the uninitiated, Continuum is a Canadian science fiction series, which centres on the conflict between a group of rebels from the year 2077 who time travel to Vancouver, BC, in 2012, and a police officer who accidentally accompanies them.

On Twitter? Follow @johnhood.

Glee's social media gleekery

E4's Misfits was a game-changer! The producers embraced transmedia storytelling from the get-go! Read the Six to Start case study here.

Fans of the critically acclaimed US television drama Mad Men had previously leveraged the power of social media and created fictional Twitter accounts for the Drapers and creative folk at Sterling Cooper. But, the network baulked at the idea and tried to close the profiles and blogs down, which was, ultimately, counterintuitive and self-defeating. The fans won a reprieve once the studio understood the positive benefits of raising awareness via the social media space. When there's goodwill, it's a win-win.

It's no surprise to see hit series Glee (Popular meets High School Musical) utilising social media:

Official Glee on Twitter
Glee

Official Glee Cast on Twitter
Cory Monteith
Lea Michelle
Amber Riley
Harry Shum, Jr.
Chris Colfer
Naya Rivera
Jenna Ushkowitz
Dianna Agron
Dijon Talton
Kevin McHale
Mark Salling
Matthew Morrison

Official Glee Characters on Twitter
Quinn Fabray
Rachel Berry
Sue Sylvester
Kurt Hummel

Official Glee Cast on Tumblr
Harry Shum Jr.
Dianna Agron
Matthew Morrison

Sue Sylvester is a compulsory follow as suggested by @petehotchkiss. This list is by no means definitive. If I've missed any, please put them in comments or @johnhood, and I'll update. Thanks in advance.

E4, an independent commercial network in the UK, even went as far as using #glee4 during television trails for Glee S1. That's a masterful mashup of old and new media marketing.

Purchase Glee merchandise from Amazon.co.uk, Play.com and iTunes.

Misfits is no misfire

On Thursday night I was invited, along with luminaries from the social media space, to a preview screening of E4's new six-part super hero comedy drama, Misfits, in the hallowed halls of Channel Four.

Party-girl Alisha (Antonia Thomas) can send people into a sexual frenzy with just one touch, hard as nails Kelly (Lauren Socha) can suddenly hear people’s thoughts, while one-time sporting hero Curtis (Nathan Stewart Jarrett) discovers he has the ability to turn back time. Even painfully shy nerd Simon (Iwan Rheon) can make himself invisible – which is what he has always felt.

Howard Overman's (Merlin, Hustle, New Tricks) treatment of super hero mythology is worthy of comparison to Bryan Singer's The X-Men. Sans sentiment, one scene brutally lampoons The X-Men's Professor Xavier. However, Overman denies such subtext, preferring the audience to embellish!

There will be no trite explanation of the meaning behind the mysterious storm that enthuses the ASBO miscreants with super powers, thereby preserving some semblance of enigma and precluding a narrative 'black hole' should Misfits, deservedly in my opinion, garner a second season! And, the creative team should be lauded for holding back on the special effects, which were secondary and tertiary to the charismatic characters. Again, the adage of less is more, applies here, in abundance (budgetary limitations aside)!

I should point out that Misfits will embrace, in the words of Channel Four's Steve Berry, 'transmedia storytelling'. This is storytelling across multiple forms of media with each element making distinctive contributions to a viewer's understanding of the story world. By using different media formats, it attempts to create "entrypoints" through which consumers can become immersed in a story world. And, perhaps most coolly of all, audiences will be able to officially follow the protagonists on Twitter; Mad Men fans started tweeting as characters, and the studio, bogged down by old media politics, initially tried to stop it, which was counter-intuitive.

Misfits isn't a reaction to Heroes, the programme's genesis pre-dates the hit US television drama series, or a self-serving misfire caching in on sociological trends. But, could be the best in-house genre show from the Channel Four stable since Dead Set! That's a super power worthy of any hero or anti-hero...

So, set your PVR to record Misfits, which begins 10PM Thursday November 12th on E4.

Special thanks to Channel Four's Steve and Alex for being so welcoming.

Sega's Madworld of Social Media

Long time readers will already know that I'm a self-confessed Sega fanboy! There's really no more eloquent way to express it!

Since the 8-bit home computer era, Sega has held me enthralled with the likes of Congo Bongo and Zaxxon! From playing Space Harrier, in a Clacton Pier arcade, to Virtua Fighter, in SegaWorld Bournemouth, Sega has been synonymous with most, if not all, of my favourite video game franchises. To use an overused soft drinks analogy: if Nintendo is Coca-Cola then Sega is its cooler competitor Pepsi, which I've always preferred!

The last few months have witnessed the exponential growth of Twitter and, with it, a surge of internationally recognised brands establishing a substantive presence on the social media service. Sega has been quick to embrace Twitter, both as a broadcast and conversational medium, and started following me prior to the end of last year.

To be honest, I wasn't even sure that it really was Sega until I'd undertaken some detective work! Rest assured Sega is officially on Twitter and, if you truly care about video games, you should be following @Sega too! Followed, good, lets continue...

Fast forward to last Friday and, in the midst of twittering, the offer of reviewing Sega's video games came straight from the horse's mouth. Double take.

Over the coming weeks expect to see my review of Sega's Madworld (Wii) and, hopefully, many more illustrious titles from Sega's stable...

SEGA on Facebook

You should follow me on twitter here.