“Murmurs” Sci-Fi time-travel drama by CBS in development

Which is a truly horrifying thought, considering what a botch that plotline was (and ruined a premise that had great potential).

I still maintain time travel is the most difficult sci fi concept to do well. It torpedoed ENT, and it's the single most damaging element in Heroes (granted, there's a lot of competition for that).

Look at the movies and shows that do time travel well - Twelve Monkeys, Lost. What they have in common is discipline and restraint. The writers decide what the rules of time travel are, communicate those rules clearly and unequivocally to the audience, and stick to them. But time travel opens up so many possibilities that writers can be distracted and sloppy, leading to plotlines that are silly, excessively illogical (illogic is inevitable so the goal is just to reduce it as much as possible), and retreads of stuff we've seen before.

The time travel stuff will probably just be reset-button-of-the-week. So I'm not counting on the writing to carry the show. They should hire some actor who can draw an audience - Ben Browder, Adrian Pasdar, Lee Pace. There's three entirely different actor types, depending on how they want to spin it. (Heck, all three could play distinct characters in the same series, how awesome would that be? )

 

I'm not holding me breath. The idea sounds kind of promising, but if I know networks, this show will be lucky to get 10 episodes aired before they pull the plug and we end up with all 15 filmed episodes on DVD a few months down the road.

I am so cynical.

 

When doing a search for Murmurs writer Jason Smilovic I just saw this title for a project in development:
Cosmic Banditos .
The imdb link has no info except says 2011.
Geez what an awful title!
It almost sounds like an attempt by Telemundo to do a scifi show!

 

Hmm from an article today about CSI creator Anthony Zuiker:

Um, that sounds awfully like Murmurs and TimeCop.

or...the police procedureal-sci fi show Unfinished Business starring Will Smith for SyFy for 2010.

It is just like Dante's Peak & Volcano in 2000. Copycats always happen... One is always better (Dante's Peak).
Let's hope that at least one of these time travel TV series gets a series...

 

"Time-travel cop show" is way too vague to say "This sounds like that show." I mean, "comedy about doctors" could describe MASH, Scrubs, or Doogie Howser, MD, three wildly different shows. "Characters stranded on a spaceship" could be Voyager or Red Dwarf.

And hell, Timecop is hardly the most prominent example of a time-travel cop show. The series ran for a paltry 9 episodes. Time Trax ran for two whole seasons. Heck, I'm amazed people even remember that there was a TV series version of Timecop, let alone default to it as the show they think of when they hear "time-travel cop show."

 

Why major networks especially CBS attempts such projects is beyond me beause I tell you now...IT WILL FAIL. mainstream network arenn't the place for SCI FI unless you can hide the fact its SCI FI for a while.

 

Cynical? Yes, but that's almost exactly what will happen, but there will be 13 episodes instead of 15.

CBS has high standards that this show will not meet if it's ever made.

I think CBS wants wants a cop show but ran out of different takes on it.

 

I rewatched Voyagers recently and I came tot he conclusion that it was the Germans and Russians who ruled the world in the future and it was all some evil plot to create a great nation out of the constantly failing and fumbling America that never really amounted to nothing which was really the route of it. Why send an under educated fob like Fillias Bog out on missions if he didn't know jack Shit unless they wanted a pawn who wouldn't ask the right questions and swallow the wrong answers.

 

While we're discussing time-travel TV shows, let's not forget "Seven Days"!

 

Don't forget the sci-fi legal procedural CBS did back in 2005, "Century City". It survived for a handful of episodes. CBS was also responsible for "Space Rangers" which faced a similar short lived fate (though it probably deserved a short one).

 

century city

I hadn't hear of it.
It is available though.

Here is the pilot.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/78168/century-city-pilot

interesting future from Wiki about the series

i would not call this a time travel cop show at all though but it shows yet another procedural show with a scifi element on CBS...

 

He wasn't saying Century City was a time-travel cop show, he was saying it was an SF procedural show.

And yeah, it's pretty surprising to see CBS developing a genre show at all. Of all the major broadcast networks, CBS is the one that's had the lowest percentage of shows that were SF/fantasy-themed.

 

The original Star Trek consisted of stand-alone stories.

 

Re: century city

Wow, I hadn't known Century City was available on Hulu. I didn't think to look under "Drama" instead of SF. Thanks for letting us know.

 

Isn't that premise similar to Michael Crichton's Timeline? A book which wasn't completely wrecked by the film (not that the book was especially good but even so).

 

The book wasn't wrecked by the film, because by the time he wrote Timeline he knew his books were becoming films, so the book reads like a film.