It’s been a bit of a mystery till now, but with the trailer for Season 2 of Altered Carbon now released - and to answer a few queries received! - we can now share that Michael appears as a recurring guest in three to four episode of Season 2. As described by Michael, while he is not in the series very much, his role is that of “an interesting if somewhat mysterious character.”

It’s not clear (yet!) which episodes Michael appears in, however with his character providing the voice-over for part of the new trailer - an apparent introduction to Takeshi Kovacs’s of the capabilities of his new body - it’s likely we’ll see (or at the very least, hear!) him in the first episode:

I crossed the stars in a colony ship before stacks were invented.

I left a dying Earth behind to seed a new world.

Mr. Kovacs, I know what you dream of.

Bespoke design by Khumalo Bioware.

Military use only.

Rapid healing, enhanced reaction time.

Among other bells and whistles.

More information to follow as it arrives, but for now, don’t forget to set your reminders for 27 February!

Following the release of a teaser trailer a week ago, Netflix have released a longer trailer, featuring the unmistakable dulcet tones of Michael Shanks!

Reminder, the second season of the series hits Netflix on 27 February!

Check out the trailer below:

Mark your calendars, folks. The new season of Altered Carbon - in which Michael appears for an as yet unknown number of eps - is coming to Netflix on 27 February.

Check out the teaser trailer released today on YouTube, and keep an eye on the official Altered Carbon Twitter account for more info!

A quick update.

A few kind folk have raised awareness that there is someone on Instagram pretending to be Michael Shanks.

Operating under the user name “OfficialMichaelShanks” the owner of the account has re-used Michael’s Twitter profile image, linked to this website, and, obviously, has set up the account under the “Official” moniker. Additionally, the user has been contacting people privately and, as “proof” of their “authenticity”, sending a photo of a fake passport page.

Michael DOES NOT post to Instagram.

We will contact Instagram to raise awareness of this fake account. But in the meantime, please ignore any posts - and particularly any private messages you may receive from this account.

Thanks to Marilyn and others who reached out to raise awareness of this issue. Very much appreciated.

Lexa has shared a quick and amusing post to Instagram, a spotting of Michael in the wild at a Canucks game with their son, Sam:

“When you’re watching the @canucks game at home and see your husband and son on the tv 🤣🤣🤣. Go Nucks!”

Michael Shanks and his son, Sam, at the Cannucks game.

Happy New Year!

A new year has begun!

Best wishes to all for a safe, happy and healthy 2020, full of everything bright.

The old version of Michael Shanks Online, a relic from the days of hand-coding, tables and CSS1!

As the saying goes, all good things come to those who wait. For Michael Shanks Online, make that “..who wait. And wait. And wait. And wait some more.” 😁

All humor aside - it might have been easy to re-launch MSOL without saying a word about the delay in updates, but that would be akin to ignoring the elephant in the room. Or maybe more aptly, the Stargate in the control room. 😉

MSOL was established in 2004, in the heady days of hand-coding HTML with CSS1 and tables. (* shudder *) On December 18, 2007, Michael kindly bestowed ‘official” status on the site, and for many years it was updated very regularly - every day or every second day. It was a point of pride that neither rain, sleet, snow or a shitty internet connection got in the way of an update being completed.

In 2014, I stopped editing the existing site with plans to change it to a sparkly, new, more responsive and mobile-friendly version. The best laid plans of mice and men, eh?

For various life and technical reasons, the upgrade of MSOL has taken a lot longer than expected. A LOT longer. News kept flowing on the Facebook page, but the site itself was unchanged. But finally, with some help from a friend, and some updates in webdesign technology that have made it a little easier, the changeover has been done.

So now MSOL has a new server location and a new look. We also have a slightly new domain name - though we’re retaining the old one, too for sentimental reasons. 😊 A lot of the content from the original site has been moved across. Some stuff is yet to be moved. Some won’t be moved at all. But I felt enough had been transferredto make re-launching the site before the end of 2019 possible. (And yes, it was tempting to wait until New Year’s day, but frankly after all this time, I thought ‘fuck it, let’s do it now’.)

So… welcome back to the now-active Michael Shanks Online website.

My thanks to Katherine for working with me over the last few weeks in getting the new site set up (the last of a few attempts over the years 😉) Thank you to Carol for helping me keep news updates going on the MSOL Facebook page on occasion when life was kicking me in the shins a bit. Thank you to Dana for being my partner in MSOL-crime in the early years. And, of course, thank you to Michael for the unwavering support, patience and understanding. You are, as ever, a gentle man among gentlemen.

MSOL is back, folks!

~ Monica

Or as Michael has referred it in his Tweet today, #RaidersOfTheLostJesusDay :-)

Michael has been added to the guest list for Wales Comic Con, to be held on the weekend of 25-26 April 2020, at the International Centre in Telford, Wales.

Michael is currently scheduled to appear on both days of the event, along with numerous other guests including John Barrowman (Arrow, Torchwood), James Marsters (Buffy The Vampire Slayer), Jewel Staite (Stargate Atlantis, Firefly) and Clive Standen (Vikings).

For full details, go to the Wales Comic Con website, and check out the event’s Twitter feed for updates.

Michael Shanks as Will Sanders, Ricardo Ortiz a Ryan Sanders and Sarah Wayne Callies as Margaret Sanders.

The Hollywood Reporter has listed “Unspeakable” as one of “15 International Series to Binge-Watch Holidays”.

Per the online news site:

“Canadian writer/producer Robert C. Cooper is best known for his work on the Stargate TV franchise, but this mini-series is deeply rooted in the real world. An exploration of the true-life tragedy that unfolded in the 1980s when Canada’s blood supply was tainted by H.I.V. and hepatitis C (Cooper himself contracted hepatitis from hemophilia treatments during that time), Unspeakable is a straight-forward docu-drama with a core of bubbling rage at a system that allowed such an unnecessary and avoidable catastrophe to occur. Its tight focus on five affected families might strike some as overly sentimental, but the approach keeps the viewer engaged, and enraged, as the scandal unfolds.”

You can stream the mini-series on Sundance Now and Amazon.