sf/f TV development news - 2013

She'll be back.

 

I think it's either a board game or a cop show that starred Damien Lewis.

 

I thought it was a magazine. Or is it a cereal?

Life. Don't talk to me about life.

 

It's some sort of computer simulation they're working on at MIT. There's still a few bugs in it. In fact, so far there's nothing but bugs in it.

 

The CW has ordered iZombie to pilot. From Deadline:

 

^^ That title is terrible though.

 

The CW has ordered Supernatural: Tribes to pilot and officially confirmed the pilot order for The Flash. Here's the description of the Supernatural spinoff from The Hollywood Reporter:

 

That pretty much just confirms stories that we'd already been hearing. Should be interesting. Very curious to see what kind of a cast they put together for it.

 

Well, it's not what I was hoping for; it sounds a lot like other shows, like Lost Girl, Being Human, The Originals, et al. I wonder if it will focus on a character or characters-- like the kid and his Golem-- that straddle both worlds.

 

Here are the one-hour SFF shows the broadcast networks have ordered to pilot or series so far for next season:

ABC

Clementine

Ordered to pilot.

Executive producers: Dean Georgaris, Mark Gordon, Nick Pepper, Ilene Staple.

Drama about a profoundly troubled 28-year-old psychic who sees her life to begin to change in unexpected ways when she decides to stop running from her past.

Forever

Ordered to pilot.

Executive producers: Jennifer Gwartz, Dan Lin, Matthew Miller.

Drama about a 200-year-old man who spends his days working in the New York City Morgue trying to find a key to unlock the curse of his immortality.

The Visitors

Ordered to pilot.

Executive producers: Justin Falvey, Darryl Frank, Soo Hugh, Dawn Olmstead, Steven Spielberg.

Drama billed as a race against the clock to defeat an unseen alien enemy out to destroy the world by using the Earth's most precious resource: children. Based on the Ray Bradbury short story "Zero Hour".

CBS

None.

CW

The Flash

Ordered to pilot.

Executive producers: Greg Berlanti, Geoff Johns, Andrew Kreisberg, David Nutter.

Pilot director: David Nutter.

Spin-off of "Arrow" featuring Barry Allen - a Central City assistant police forensics investigator - who becomes the costumed hero "The Flash".

iZombie

Ordered to pilot.

Executive producers: Dan Etheridge, Diane Ruggiero, Danielle Stokdyk, Rob Thomas.

Small screen take on the DC Comics title, about a med student-turned-zombie who takes a job in the coroner's office to gain access to the brains she must reluctantly eat to maintain her humanity.

Supernatural: Tribes

Ordered to pilot.

Executive producers: Jeremy Carver, Robert Singer.

Spin-off of the series set up via a backdoor pilot about hunters and monsters in Chicago.

Fox

Gotham

Ordered to series.

Executive producers: Danny Cannon, Bruno Heller.

Pilot director: Danny Cannon.

Drama featuring a young Bruce Wayne and a then-Detective Gordon, detailing the events the led up to them becoming Batman and Commissioner Gordon, as Gotham is teetering on the edge.

Hieroglyph

Ordered to series (13 episodes).

Executive producers: Travis Beacham, Peter Chernin, Katherine Pope, Miguel Sapochnik.

Pilot director: Miguel Sapochnik.

From the press release: Set in ancient Egypt, where fantasy and reality intertwined, HIEROGLYPH follows a notorious thief who is plucked from prison to serve the Pharoah, navigating palace intrigue, seductive concubines, criminal underbellies and even a few divine sorcerers.

Wayward Pines

Ordered to series (10 episodes - billed as an event series, although that generally means it could be extended if it does well enough; it's not clear to what extent, if any, it actually has SFF elements, but I'll include it here anyway as it seems like at least a quasi-SFF show).

Executive producers: Chad Hodge, Donald De Line, Ashwin Rajan, M. Night Shyamalan.

Pilot director: M. Night Shyamalan.

From the press release: Imagine the perfect American town... beautiful homes, manicured lawns, children playing safely in the streets. Now imagine never being able to leave. You have no communication with the outside world. You think you're going insane. You must be in Wayward Pines.

NBC

Babylon Fields

Ordered to pilot.

Executive producers: Michael Atkinson, Gerald Cuesta, Michael Cuesta.

Pilot director: Michael Cuesta.

Drama in which the dead are resurrected and try to resume their former lives.

Constantine

Ordered to pilot.

Executive producers: Daniel Cerone, David S. Goyer.

Small screen take on the DC Comics character John Constantine, an enigmatic and irreverent con man-turned-reluctant supernatural detective who is thrust into the role of defending us against dark forces from beyond.

Emerald City

Ordered to series (10 episodes).

Executive producers: Matthew Arnold, Josh Friedman.

From the press release: NBC has given a 10-episode straight-to-series order for "Emerald City," a reimagining of the classic Frank L. Baum books that have inspired everything from "The Wizard of Oz" to "Wicked." Based on the 14-book series that first created the wonderful - and treacherous - Land of Oz, "Emerald City" is a dramatic and modern reimagining of the tales that include lethal warriors, competing kingdoms, and the infamous wizard as we've never seen him before. A head-strong 20-year-old Dorothy Gale is unwittingly sent on an eye-opening journey that thrusts her into the center of an epic and bloody battle for the control of Oz.

Tin Man

Ordered to pilot.

Executive producers: Daniel Bobker, John Glenn, Ehren Kruger.

Pilot director: D.J. Caruso.

Drama set in the near future about a fugitive robot accused of first degree murder, who may hold the key to the future of human evolution, and the young female public defender forced to fight for his cause.

 

The most interesting thing on that list for me is The Flash. Little else sounds interesting, except maybe the thing based on the Bradbury story, and the Ancient Egypt thing might be worth a look. Tin Man sounds interesting except that it's so blatantly based on the Eando Binder story "I, Robot" and the Outer Limits adaptation thereof (right down to using the same first names for the robot and the creator he murdered), and yet it isn't acknowledging its source.

 

Neil Marshall has signed to direct the pilot for Constantine. He's directed the movies Dog Soldiers, The Descent, Doomsday, and Centurion, as well as episodes of Game of Thrones and Black Sails, including the pilot for the latter.

 

Of all those, only Hieroglyph and Emerald City sound vaguely interesting. And Tin Man, but who wants to bet that the "robot" is a humaniform android indistinguishable from a person who will be played by a human actor?

 

I don't really like the idea of Supernatural: Tribes. The series has been about Hunters traversing the entire country and dealing with Supernatural threats. To then have a spinoff and say there's ongoing supernatural threats in a large city so we a stationed hunter/group there doesn't really jive to me.

Of course the series has changed a lot from the start. Now they're leaving monsters alive if deemed 'good/not a threat'

 

Actually, it occurred to me that Tribes may be a period piece set in the 20s, spinning off from the Elliot Ness episode. That would make it more interesting, I suppose.

 

That could be cool. It would definitely help it stand out from the other paranormal fantasy shows.

 

Indeed. I like the 20s, and the show would probably focus on the Men of Letters, which I also like.

 

Just saw this on IMDB. Trailer for "From Dusk Till Dawn the Series" on something called the "El Rey Network".

http://www.imdb.com/list/QwZzplEgHGU/?ref_=hm_3p_vi3#lb-1

 

That's the new network started up by Robert Rodriguez, the director of the original From Dusk Till Dawn, the Spy Kids movies, the Machete movies and a lot of other stuff. He is also co-director of the two Sin City movies with Frank Miller.

 

Neil Gaiman's American Gods, which HBO passed on, is now being developed as a TV series by FremantleMedia.