sf/f TV development news - 2013

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Oh no, Defiance is post-apocalyptic? How cliche. I had higher hopes when the earlier releases talked about a "terraformed" Earth (although that would be using the word incorrectly, since that means making a planet more Earthlike). I'd imagined something where alien settlement led to the deliberate transformation of the planet (maybe as a way of restoring the ecosystem we ruined?).

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

I like Julie Benz' casting as the mayor. I was also going back and forth trying to figure out what they meant by "a future Earth" - earlier descriptions made it sound like it might be another world, terraformed to look like Earth, but no such luck.

Like Christopher, I figured there's one planet you can't "terraform," but hey at least they haven't destroyed all forms of energy.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Earth: Now more Earth-like than ever.

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I wonder, would reterraforming be an appropriate term in that case (since life is evidently what terraformed Earth to begin with -- err, albeit as a natural rather than as an artificial process)?

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

I think we need a more generic, less Earth-centric word for the process of modifying a planet's ecosystem -- especially since, as you point out, Corporal, Earth itself has been transformed from time to time. In my writing, I favor "ecoforming," and a quick Google suggests I'm not the only one who's coined the term.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

I can't attest to the veracity of anything here, but this article, a review and discussion of 1493 by Charles C. Mann, is quite interesting.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

May Upfronts Schedule, May 14-17

Which is when all the cancellations and new show orders come in, in case there are any first-timers reading this.

Everything on broadcast that I care about is safe this time around. That's the benefit of not caring about much. So I'm chiefly interested to see what gets picked up.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Roddenberry's "brand of science fiction" returning to TV?

So what, is this alt-history or something?

Sounds like everybody's brand of science fiction nowadays - Earth-based, easily shoved into a case-of-the-week format - but eh...might be fun. Bonus points if the main character is not a FBI agent/PI/cop.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Here's the comic's website:

http://www.daysmissing.com/

And there's a sample issue available here (though a lot of the writing is in a cursive font that's hard to read on that scale):

http://www.archaia.com/archaia-titles/days-missing/

It doesn't look "case-of-the-week" to me, at least not in the procedural sense. And it's more like hidden history than alternate history. Of course, the show might be changed considerably from the comic.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Depends on who gets the show (if it's gotten by anyone). SyFy is highly likely to shoehorn it into a case of the week format with an attractive male and female leads and plenty of UST, but on HBO or Showtime it would be permitted a more flexible and less cliched format.

The notion of inventing days that fit nicely into the historical record and would have changed history is intriguing and very ambitious. Is there really all that much of history that doesn't make sense pretty much already? I'm trying to think of Big, Unexplained Things, but eh...drawing a blank...

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

^Well, in the preview comic, it established that the immortal Steward was the guy who gave Hammurabi the idea to write down a code of laws. So I imagine it would be along those lines -- events that we know, but with Steward turning out to be the guy who set them into motion.

And I really can't think of a Syfy show that fits your description, other than Haven, perhaps, which I don't watch. Warehouse 13 is the one show that revolves primarily around a core male-female duo, and their relationship is emphatically a brother-sister type of bond, with the whole idea of anything sexual between them being completely and profoundly off the table. Eureka had plenty of UST between its male and female leads for a time, but it's always been an ensemble show. And Alphas is very much an ensemble whose core character is an aloof sixtysomething psychiatrist.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Perhaps The Steward is like The Hitchhiker of History.

In any case, it sounds interesting. And I'd love to see a new show with philosophical and humanistic themes again; it's been a long time.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Great world changing things that happened but were hidden. Great idea. Aliens or deities would have to be involved . Especially waring ones here on Earth that need Human involvement and intervention by unsuspecting people called on randomely for their unique abilities to help deal with the alien god's situation or dilemma/war. Obviously something like that has to be kept hidden and forgotten else the experiment gets tainted as it were. As in what's really happening on Earth by higher life forms vs lower life forms that create what we already know to exist but are not sure exactly why or how.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Hmm, that might run into a Who Cares problem, but anyway, odds are this will never become a series so it's way too early to start fretting.

You just named the three SyFy scripted dramas I was thinking of. It's not like they have dozens. And when I was watching Warehouse 13, I could tell very well why they chose to have a male and female lead rather than two characters of the same gender (not that that stops the shippers).

I haven't been watching lately so just for giggles, I googled "warehouse 13 shippers," and lo and behold, there are a whole lot of people seeing stuff you aren't...

Fuck Yeah Myka & Pete

But it looks like that floozie HG Wells is making the moves on....Myka!

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Well, yes, that was my point. I listed all their current scripted dramas and explained why none of them (except possibly Haven) fits your description, which is really more a description of The X-Files than anything on Syfy.

Why make this about me? It's not my opinion, it's right there in the scripts. The writers have been very careful to make it blatantly clear that Pete and Myka's relationship is strictly platonic. They even did an episode where Pete and Myka came under the influence of a memory-erasing artifact with dangerous consequences to a teammate, so before they passed out and lost their memories, they stripped and got into bed together so that when they woke up and found themselves that way, they'd have to investigate and find out what really happened because they both knew that it was absolutely impossible that they could've had sex. Not to mention that they've both repeatedly been shown to have romantic interest in other people, not each other. If there was any "UST" between them in the first season or so, they've long since grown beyond it.

Besides, shippers are always imagining relationships that aren't intended or wanted by the makers of the actual shows. Hell, the first shippers in modern sci-fi fandom were Kirk/Spock slash fanciers, and that certainly wasn't intended by the show's writers. And did I mention the example of The Middleman? In their online Q&A sessions, that show's creators kept hearing suggestions from the fans to ship MM and Wendy, and they always reacted with vocal disgust, because they'd clearly written the MM-Wendy relationship as a surrogate father/daughter thing. Not to mention Supernatural and the Sam/Dean shippers who don't seem to realize or care that a relationship between those two characters would be literal incest.

So don't try to pass off shipper fantasies as evidence of how the show is actually written. Because many shippers are so blinded by their fixation on good-looking actors that they don't comprehend or care what the characters are actually like.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Oh come on, you don't think the writers know exactly what they're doing when they choose the leads for a show, that it will generate shipper wars and get them lots of free publicity? You're not the type to participate in shipper wars, so maybe you're not seeing it, but believe me, that kind of stuff doesn't happen by accident.

The real point here, SyFy is doing a lousy job of making shows that will interest me, and they better clean up their act.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

It's pig slop or nothing. Deleriously sadistic. I was just thinking of that Dune scene where Baron Harkonan tells the Duke's master of assassins that he must milk this thin white cat because it contains the antidote to a slow poison that they are feeding him. So you can't win. They have all the cards which they don't have to play, ever. Still waiting for the twin titans of netflix and Amazon to step on their greedy asses. Any indication when that might happen? I know they're dug in deep with politics in hell and all locked up and fortified like the Emperer from Dune was until Muadib's storm came.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

"Twin titans"?

Netflix is forging ahead with their horror series, Hemlock Grove. It sounds like something SyFy would show, but since Eli Roth is involved, at least we can expect excessive gore.

I dunno what the phlox Amazon is up to. There was a vague news story that set off everyone a week or so ago. Yahoo was making noises, but they're in serious trouble so they probably should focus on salvaging their business. YouTube's "professional channels" are unscripted as far as I can tell.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

Like I said, the bizarre fantasies shippers spin have very little to do with what the creators of a show actually intend. When a group actually doesn't seem to mind incest, then you've crossed the line into crazyland.

Yes, of course shows choose leads who will be attractive, so that viewers will like to watch them. It doesn't automatically follow that those lead characters are obligated to be attracted to each other. And frankly I think it's offensive and sexist to assume that the only possible relationship a man and woman can have is a romantic one. Some of the most fulfilling friendships I've had -- in fact, the majority of them -- have been with women. There are lots of perfectly valid platonic relationships between male and female characters in fiction, and I think it's shallow, blind, and foolish to try to impose something sexual on every one of them. And it's equally blind to try to force all onscreen relationships into a single mold rather than recognizing the diversity of them.

I mean, just to pull an example out of a hat, look at Firefly. That show had a lot of male-female relationships and every one of them was different. Mal, for instance, had UST with Inara, but Zoe was his trusted second-in-command and partner (who was happily and faithfully married), Kaylee was kind of a kid sister to him (who was actively pursuing Simon), and River was both an innocent he felt protective toward and an enigma he was wary of having to deal with. That's an intriguingly rich assortment of different ways for one male character to relate to the various women in his life. I'm sure there are shippers out there who've written fanfic, explicit or otherwise, pairing Mal with all four of those women (possibly all at once), but that's just got nothing to do with who the characters actually were or what was interesting about them.

Why? You're not the only viewer in the country. If you don't like the things they make, they're not obligated to change just for you. After all, you have other entertainment options, and they have plenty of other viewers. I for one think Syfy's scripted dramas in the 2011-12 season were the best they've ever been and some of the most enjoyable shows currently on television. I wouldn't have said that about Warehouse 13 prior to this past year, or about Eureka prior to the 2010 season, but they've both greatly improved. And Alphas had a fantastic first season; it was easily one of the best and most distinctive genre shows of the year. Sure, I'd like to see more scripted dramas and more space/future shows, but I think they're actually doing a pretty terrific job right now.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

I'm the only viewer in the country whose opinions matter to me, that's for sure.

SyFy has got too many shows that just go over the standard tropes: cop show, shipper UST, the usual stuff. I've seen too much of that, and I'm completely bored by it.

There are still ways to make even the old crap work - Awake is essentially a cop show, but they seem to be hitting on an interesting angle - but SyFy isn't making an effort to do that. They're letting other channels like HBO and AMC put them to shame with the quality of sf/f shows they are putting out there.

Looking over the sf/f pilots for next season, SyFy is not really putting forward the most interesting concepts. The most promising sounding ones so far are Beautiful People (NBC) and...wow...that might be only one. I guess I'll throw 99 Stories in there, just because AMC has a good track record.

 

Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012

With extra creatures and plants!