Linda Hamilton to Guest Star on Season Two of Syfy's DEFIANCE

Linda Hamilton joins the season two cast of Syfy's drama series, DEFIANCE, in the recurring guest role of Pilar, the mysterious and long-separated wife of Rafe McCawley (Graham Greene). Premiering its second season on Thursday, June 19 at 8 p.m. ET/PT, the ambitious series delivered an average of 1.5 million viewers 18-49 and 3.2 million total viewers in its first season, based on Live +7 data.

Hamilton will play the key recurring role of Pilar McCawley, the wife of Rafe McCawley (Graham Greene) and mother to their three children. Separated from her family for a number of years, Pilar has now returned home. Pilar suffered from serious mental illness and in the aftermath of the Votan arrival and subsequent war, did not have access to her medication. With her mental state unchecked, Pilar snapped and tried to murder her children. Fearing for the family's safety, Rafe sent her to an institution and told their children she had died. Now Pilar is back with both a steely resolve and a warm, maternal love for her family. But the motives for her return are unclear, and soon Rafe and others in town begin to question where she's actually been these past years.

H.G. Wells Returns to WAREHOUSE 13 with a Vengeance When DEFIANCE Star Jaime Murray Reprises Her Fan-Favorite Role

Jaime Murray is taking over Syfy on Monday, June 3 from 9-11 p.m. ET/PT when the DEFIANCE star returns to WAREHOUSE 13 as H.G. Wells, the "father" of science fiction and sometimes-Warehouse Agent, who disappeared last season.

In the WAREHOUSE 13 episode, "Instinct," premiering at 10 p.m. ET/PT, H.G. shockingly resurfaces when Pete (Eddie McClintock) and Myka (Joanne Kelly) track down a crime vigilante with a vicious artifact that savagely disfigures its victims. The reunion is cut short when someone H.G. cares about is caught in the crosshairs of the artifact hunt. Myka must race to bag the artifact before H.G. reverts to her dark past in a lust for vengeance.

Murray portrays wicked alien matriarch Stahma Tarr in Syfy's hit series DEFIANCE, which airs at 9 p.m. On this week's episode, Stahma forges an unlikely bond while seeking safety from a deadly storm.

To enhance the second screen experience for fans of both series, Murray will live tweet from 9-11 p.m. ET during Syfy's two-hour Powerful Mondays programming block.

From 9-10 p.m. ET Murray will tweet from @DefianceWorld. During the WAREHOUSE 13 episode from 10-11 p.m. ET, she will tweet from @Syfy.

WAREHOUSE 13 follows a team of government agents who work at a massive, top-secret storage facility in windswept South Dakota, which houses every strange artifact, mysterious relic, fantastical object and preternatural souvenir ever collected by the U.S. government. The Warehouse's caretaker Artie Nielsen (Saul Rubinek) charges Pete Lattimer (Eddie McClintock), Myka Bering (Joanne Kelly), Claudia Donovan (Allison Scagliotti) and Steve Jinks (Aaron Ashmore) with chasing down reports of supernatural and paranormal activity in search of new objects to cache at the Warehouse, as well as helping him control the Warehouse itself.

Syfy Announces Dates For DEFIANCE, WAREHOUSE 13, MERLIN & More

Syfy will kick off the spring season with a powerhouse lineup of scripted and unscripted programming led by the groundbreaking transmedia event DEFIANCE (April 15) and the Season 4.5 return of WAREHOUSE 13 (April 29).

This spring will also mark the season finales of STRANDED (April 3); BEING HUMAN (April 8); LOST GIRL (April 22) and ROBOT COMIC LEAGUE (April 23), and the series farewell of MERLIN (final five episodes air May 3-May 31).

Below are highlights of Syfy’s 2013 Spring programming (All Times ET/PT):

Brian J. Smith To Guest Star In DEFIANCE

Brian J. Smith is set to guest star in an episode of Syfy’s groundbreaking series, DEFIANCE, set to premiere April 2013. Smith will portray Gordon McClintock, a NASA hero from the pre-Arkfall days who was presumed dead following a space station catastrophe in 2013. The astronaut is discovered to still be alive when he is revived from an induced sleep, and is overcome with shock and disbelief at the dangerous new world of DEFIANCE.

Originally from Dallas, Texas, Smith is a graduate of the four-year acting program at The Julliard School in New York City. Smith starred in the Syfy original series STARGATE UNIVERSE and the Syfy original movie Red Faction. He also starred in the 2009 feature film The War Boys, written by award-winning playwright Naomi Wallace and Bruce McLeod, and appeared in the 2009 thriller Redhook.

NEWS ROUNDUP: Michael Muhney On Y&R's Cartoonish Passions; Kelly Monaco's Grueling Schedule; EMMERDALE At 40; Bette Midler To GLEE

Michael Muhney on the recent past of THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS: "I don't think half of those stories needed to happen"
"It saddens me that when you summarize the storyline, the show and some of its recent past sounds like cartoonish passions," Muhney says. "I don't think half of those stories needed to happen. I wouldn't have gone that far in the writing with the baby issue. The Victor and Sharon marriage was almost like an inside joke."

The arrival of the new writers puts the weird plot turns in the past, Muh-ney says.

"A lot of the characters on the show are going to have to get a get-out-of-jail-free card, in terms of what happened in the last few years," Muhney says. "For these characters to have long-term strength and respectability, the audience is going to have to look at them like 85 per cent of what happened in the last few years was a bad dream."

The TV Land Electorate
Many of the most popular TV characters tend to keep quiet about their politics, avoiding naming names and party affiliations, lest they alienate any of their viewers.

There are some exceptions, though, and they range across both the political spectrum and the TV dial. Slate assembled some of our favorite faces from the small screen who have expressed actual political affiliations—and the results are fantastically bipartisan.

Brittany Allen Joins Syfy's DEFIANCE

Emmy-winning actress Brittany Allen (ALL MY CHILDREN) has been cast in a recurring role in Syfy’s upcoming series DEFIANCE. Allen will play Tirra, a troubled employee of the town madam, Kenya (Mia Kirshner). When she and Kenya are abducted as a result of Tirra’s dangerous inclinations, the two build an unlikely bond as they are launched into a terrifying fight for survival in alien badlands.

A Toronto native, Allen made her feature film debut in a principle role alongside Rainn Wilson and Emma Stone in 20th Century Fox’s The Rocker. She recently shot the feature Dead Before Dawn-3D opposite Devon Bostick, and wrapped the indie film Backgammon, a psychological relationship thriller. On the small screen, Brittany is well known for her portrayal as Marissa Chandler on ABC’s ALL MY CHILDREN, a role for which she received an Emmy for Outstanding Younger Actress in A Drama Series in 2011. Brittany can soon be seen as a supporting lead in the Canadian Miniseries Bomb Girls, which will premiere in the U.S. on Reelz on September 11th. She also recently filmed a guest-starring role on Syfy’s LOST GIRL.