John Ellison Conlee joins the Tremors series as Val’s new best friend

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Earl Bassett, the character played by Fred Ward in the original TREMORS and TREMORS II: AFTERSHOCKS, may still own a business in the small town of Perfection, Nevada (Earl's Graboid Waste Gobbling), but it doesn't seem like he'll still be in town himself in Syfy's new Tremors mini-series. I say this because the mini-series centers on Earl's best friend and housemate Valentine McKee, with Kevin Bacon returning to the role for the first time since the first TREMORS, and a character description has revealed that Val is going to have a new best friend this time around.

(The fact that Fred Ward hasn't been announced as a cast member is also a tip-off.)

Val's new closest pal is Harlan Maylor, who will be played on the show by John Ellison Conlee. Harlan was once "a geeky teenager obsessed with the idea of hunting the Sandworm of Tatooine", but his obsession with Graboids took a heavy personal toll and he's now a scruffy mess. "A genius who began his adult years working for a biotech company, Harlan now dedicates himself to yoga, meditation and self-exploration."

The story of the mini-series, which has been written by Andrew Miller, picks up in Perfection 

25 years after Valentine McKee defeated the Graboids, and the man who once seemed destined for greatness is anything but. He’s a small-town hero whose glory days faded away with the monsters he braved and whose family moved on when he couldn’t let go of the past.

And yet McKee’s hoping that everything’s about to change. His grown daughter coming to visit on the heels of her graduation could signal a permanent homecoming. But no sooner than she arrives, strange and terrifying events make it clear the town is in danger.

Led by McKee, the gang from Perfection begins to uncover the spine-chilling truth of what’s hunting them. With the future looking darker than ever, these small-town heroes must shake off the dust of years to see what they’re made of.

Bacon and Conlee are joined in the cast by Emily Tremaine as Val's daughter Emily; Megan Ketch as returning character Mindy Sterngood, now a doctor who is also "an unanticipated threat"; Shiloh Fernandez as Nico Garza, who works in Earl's Graboid Waste Gobbling company; and Toks Olagundoye as Jessica Florence, a city-chic civil engineer who has come to Perfection with plans to expand the access road.

SPLICE's Vincenzo Natali will be directing the pilot episode, which is scheduled to start filming in Albuquerque, New Mexico by the end of the month.