There's a bunch of new sf/f stuff out there. I've starred the definite stuff I think sounds good - there isn't a whole lot, but most of it looks worth checking out.
For the development shows, there's no sense jumping the gun since at least half will never see the light of day and overall they don't sound promising (especially what skiffy has lined up). But I've starred the ones I like the sound of anyway, on the assumption that the casting and writing will be good.
Coming this Fall
**The Walking Dead - Yes, based on the comic book, debuts on AMC on Halloween of this year.
**The Event - A regular guy's girlfriend vanishes, catapaulting him into a global conspiracy of mind-bending proportions with some undefined sci fi component to it. Appears to be an attempt to capture the
Lost and
24 audiences. It's been getting some positive buzz.
**No Ordinary Family - A family of four develops superpowers. The two leads as the parents, Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz, are very appealing.
**Fallen Skies - Alien invasion/human resistance fighters on TNT. Noah Wylie's the lead.
The Cape - Mid-season: father tries to reconnect with his son by becoming a superhero.
Coming 2011
**Terra Nova - Spielburgian time travel to dinosaur times. Yay!
In Development
**Alabama - a comedy on FX by the
Reno: 911 guys, set a thousand years in the future, aboard the United Nations peacekeeping spaceship: THE USS ALABAMA. The series begins six years into their seven year mission to maintain peace and enforce treaties between planets in their jurisdiction: Sector 187-G. The show will follow the heart- pounding action as our crew visits hostile planets, meets alien life-forms, and tries to have sex with each other in their tiny, metal bunk beds.
Skiffy's development slate, including:
Ball & Chain - feuding couple get superpowers that work only when they're near each other. Ugh.
Me & Lee - Lee Majors helps a kid become bionic. Might work if it were a parody of Lee Majors (played by Ben Browder) instead of him actually being in the show.
**Orion - Space opera with a female lead - adventurous relic hunter - Mal Reynolds in drag?
**Sherwood - Space opera vaguely based on the Robin Hood legend. "A young man of privilege teams up with a misfit spaceship crew to right the wrongs of his family." Sounds more like Luke Skywalker.
Legendary - Kevin Sorbo plays an exaggerated version of himself... a former syndicated television series star. He and a fan combat the underworld mythological creatures that threaten to destroy Los Angeles. Like the Lee Majors show, this would work a lot better if someone with comic skills were parodying Sorbo. Also, how are they going to make Vancouver look like Los Angeles?
The New World - An American version of
Torchwood, not how it would be different from
The X-Files or
Fringe. Terrible name, will make the audience expect space opera. Starz.
**The Lotus Caves - Bryan Fuller is developing this for Skiffy. Love his stuff.
The show will be based upon the popular book The Lotus Caves by John Christopher, about colonists who rebel against the rigidity of their lunar colony by exploring beyond its proscribed boundaries and discovering a series of caves ruled by a super-intelligent, alien species.
**
Zombies vs. Vampires on NBC. Comedy?
Being Human - American version being developed by Skiffy.
Three Inches on Skiffy. Show about superheroes with lame powers. Probably will be another unwatchable cutsey-poo skiffy show like
Eureka and
Haven. The only notable thing so far is that David Straitharn is in it.
**Camelot - Arthurian legend re-interpreted for sleazy, gory adult fun on Starz by the folks that brought us
The Tudors. James Purfoy (Lot) and Joseph Fiennes (Merlin) are the draw for me.
I've been watching
The Gates over the summer. It started out pretty dreadful but shaped up well. It's about a big-city cop who takes a job as the head of a gated community police force after a sketchy incident in which he may have murdered a suspect in a vigilante killing. The gated community turns out to be a safe haven for vampires, werewolves, etc, who live as normal folks. The story involves the cop developing loyalties to the supernatural citizens of the community, and vice versa. It's very character based and surprisingly plausible.
