sf/f TV development news - 2013

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

It's definitely not Ghostbusters - I have an earlier summary that may actually be a little spoilery so I'll code it.

Spoiler: 666 Park premise

666 Park (ABC) - drama about an innocent couple from the Midwest that moves to New York and gets hired to be resident managers of a building on the Upper East Side where unbeknownst to the couple, the residents have all unwittingly made deals with the Devil to have their deepest needs, ambitions and desires fulfilled.

This one is more Ghostbusters:

I don't get the sense that CBS is as big on genre stuff as the other networks are. That show they have about the doctor who sees his dead wife or something is more their style - afterlife-oriented spiritual stuff, which is technically sf/f but very different in its appeal.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

They never have been. Of all the broadcast networks, CBS has historically been the one with the lowest ratio of genre to non-genre shows in its lineup. (If by "genre" we mean SF/fantasy/supernatural, that is. They've had plenty of stuff in the mystery genre, courtroom genre, etc.)

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

...and the other Beauty and the Beast pilot gets a greenlight. This is from ABC, based on the original fairy tale (as opposed to the CW version, which is a remake of the series with Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman.)

I vote for Josh Holloway to play Gaston. He'd also make a good Beast, but it would be a crime against humanity to hide him under all that makeup.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Well, we can thank the success of Once Upon A Time for adding a little variety to TV. And I say "little" because I guess we'll now be in for a spate of fairy tales.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

I wonder if maybe we'll be able to get that Fables adaptation they started on a few years back. Or would that be deemed to similar to OUAT?

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

I could see another network (CBS or FOX is all that's left without any fairy tale shows) picking up a series that is very similar to OUAT. Networks like to copy each other rather than be stunningly original. Cable might get into the act - TNT or SyFy for instance.

However, I haven't heard of any fairy tale shows in development other than the ones that have been picked up. Lots of witches and ghosts going begging, tho.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

CW is riffing on Hunger Games! They just greenlighted the pilot for...

Also going to pilot at the CW:

The Selection sounds interesting, Joey Dakota a lot less so.

Pilot season is winding down a bit early this year, but there are a few sf/f series still in contention.

A "Jeckyll & Hyde" drama at ABC - I've heard of two in contention, one of which centers on "a female criminal psychologist in San Francisco who is drawn into the mysterious world of a brilliant but inhibited scientist and his volatile alter ego."

The "Jon Favreau/Roberto Orci/Seth Green/Michael Dougherty sci-fi drama" at ABC is Ex-Comm, or used to be called that, basically a government-backed X-Files (sorta spoils the fun, doesn't it? )

Hieroglyph (FOX) and Revolution (NBC) - action-adventure series that may have sf/f elements, details as yet being skimpy.

With the CW picking up several pilots, looks like they've passed on Deadman.

So far, not much news from cable-land...

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Umm... huh? The X-Files was about a pair of FBI agents. They were government-backed, weren't they? (Although, granted, grudgingly so.)

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

They were rebels and powerful folks in the big bad gubmint were against them, so they got to be the underdogs. People like stories about underdogs. Here's how Ex-Comm is described:

Might work, but it strikes me as taking a familiar story and then deleting a big part of the reason it was so successful.

Then again, maybe the new Prez is a starry-eyed idealist who doesn't realize that aliens already control everything.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

They better not have aliens, otherwise they might give 2K grounds to sue them for ripping off the X-COM franchise.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Presumably, the time travel is some kind of unexpected and uncontrollable event. If somebody had the ability to travel through time, I think the 1990s would probably be pretty low on the list of destinations.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

If Ex-Comm doesn't have aliens, they might as well not bother. But they should change the name - it sounds like something embarrassing you buy at the drugstore.

Couple more pickups at ABC.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Here's a Cartoon Network show that could be a lot of fun, if it's not pitched solely to the kid audience:

Nep League.

For the sake of fairness, I am forced to report that Zombies and Cheerleaders has gone to pilot. From Disney.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Yeah, right. Over her dead body.

Oh, wait....

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

More Beautiful People casting

First casting for Last Resort

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

S'funny, as familiar as Tovah Feldshuh's name is, I can't recall having once seen her in anything before.

Daniel Lessing looks just like Duke from Haven.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Kevin Bacon To Star In Kevin Williamson’s Serial Killer Fox Pilot

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

That is awesome news about Kevin Bacon, but I wasn't exactly sure that show was "genre" (I think by "technology," they just mean the internet, not something sci fi) so I haven't been following it.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

JJ Abrams' Revolution has been picked up to pilot at NBC, and sure enough, it's sci fi.

Weird concept, not sure how that's going to play out in a weekly series, but at least it's different, and it's nice to see an ambitious premise for a change. No magic cops or vampires.

PS, I'm sure that description means "man made" forms of energy because if the Sun has ceased to exist, that's going to be a very short series.

My first question is whether this scenario is "natural" - a product of humans running through all energy sources - or does it happen as a bolt from the blue, and nobody knows why? I figure it's gotta be the latter because the former is pretty crazy. We'd screw up the climate beyond repair before we used up all the oil and coal deposits on the planet. Which means there's bound to be an overarching mystery element.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

^^^

That reminds me of the novel Ill Wind. In that book there's a huge oil spill and the oil company tries to clean up the spill using this organism they've created that eats oil. It winds up destroying all the oil in the world including rubber products or anything else oil based. Everything after that goes all Mad Max.