sf/f TV development news - 2013

[USS Kongo]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

Yeah, FX has no problem with Dylan McDermott's butt. But it's not keeping the ratings from diving.

More development news: Zombieland, the TV series.

Fresh off the record-breaking ratings for Sunday's Season 2 premiere of AMC's The Walking Dead, the network and Sony Pictures Television are developing a potential half-hour comedy based on the Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson and Emma Stone starrer Zombieland.

Now that's ironic. The movie originally started out as a failed pilot. Talk about coming around full circle.

Sean

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

Supposedly, this isn't sci fi, but it's so weird I just have to share it. I have no idea how they're going to wrangle all this into one coherent series.

The creators of polygamist series Big Love are developing another unconventional family drama for HBO. Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer are behind China Doll, a show in the works at the pay cable network about a mixed-race family and their humanoid robot. The project combines Scheffer’s passion for technology and Olsen’s interest in Chinese history and politics. “It is about China, Chinese Americans, robots, the effect of technology on our lives and the China moment in American consciousness,” said Olsen, referring to China’s current economic ascendance that is changing the dynamic in the U.S.-Chinese relationship. China Doll centers on a successful California construction subcontractor, his Asian American wife who is a university professor, and a robot as they straddle both sides of the Pacific with extended families on two continents.

 

[Kegg]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

I've been following Big Love on Sky Atlantic, it's just reached the fourth season. To say I love the series would be something of an understatement, it has a pretty fair shot at this point of being my favourite HBO drama... and with its focus on a decidedly atypical family with genuine enthusiasm and warmth, I like this idea already.

Supposedly, this isn't sci fi,

Well, unless the robot is based on what's real right now - and there's admittedly some pretty weird stuff out there - I don't see how this isn't sci-fi.

...though really it doesn't matter to me this looks very promising.

 

[Christopher]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

Supposedly, this isn't sci fi,

Well, unless the robot is based on what's real right now - and there's admittedly some pretty weird stuff out there - I don't see how this isn't sci-fi.

To people in the mainstream, "sci-fi" has long had the connotation of "fanciful, way-out stuff that couldn't possibly happen," because that's what the overwhelming majority of the SF in the mass media has always been. So when someone makes a show that's plausibly extrapolated forward from realistic science, like the first season of SeaQuest or the short-lived Century City, they feel it necessary to say it's "not science fiction" because of what the public wrongly assumes SF to be. Most people don't understand that fiction credibly extrapolating from currently real science and technology is science fiction in its truest sense. Because so very little of that has ever made it out of prose and onto the film or television screen, and because most people don't read books.

 

[Kegg]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

fiction credibly extrapolating from currently real science and technology is science fiction

I think that's taken as a given here, though.

I was just wondering if they mean the robot will actually be like those demonstration models I've seen on TV, as opposed to a robot who is human enough to be played by an actor.

Obviously if the robot isn't that, the show is technically sci-fi.

 

[sojourner]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

If the robot is useful beyond more than a single task in a home environment, it's science fiction.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

The creators of the robot show are the ones who said it isn't sci fi (in the article). That may just be the usual skittishness about the sci fi label, but if the "humanoid" robot is no more advanced than the ones that currently exist, such as the ones developed in Japan - just fancy conversation pieces - I'll take their word for it. (Seems like a waste not to make the robot at least a little more advanced.)

 

[RJDiogenes]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

Eh, the Lost people said the same thing. They're just afraid of scaring away the mainstream audience.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

They're probably just afraid of being associated with that Star Track show.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

Is there anything sf/f about the anime Noir, which Starz is doing a live action version of?

Ditto for The Punisher (which is being developed for FOX).

Here's a definite sf/f show to add: get ready for a 19th C X-Files!

The Eye at ABC...is a Western with a paranormal twist set in 1871 Arizona and centered on a team of Pinkerton Detectives who search for answers to unexplained phenomena.

That could be fun. I love sf/f in historical settings.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

So The Punisher is sci fi after all? (Since there are threads on it in this forum.)

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

So The Punisher is sci fi after all? (Since there are threads on it in this forum.)

People sometimes post on comic book projects - especially ones originating from the Marvel or DC Universes - in the SFF forum even when there isn't actually any SFF content in them. I expect The Punisher, like Fox's Human Target, will be developed as a non-SFF action show.

 

[Warped9]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

The only one that interested me was The Last Resort. I miss spaceship shows too.

Same. And I'm still wary on that one.

There isn't anything else on that last that intrigues in the least. And with today's sensibilities I seriously doubt a new Bewitched will work.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

Here's another one: Maybe Angels (CBS) - a legal show about two angels who help their former spouses.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

Deadline talks about that one plus yet another "spiritual" feel-good show.

The untitled Niels Mueller project centers on an ordinary man making an extraordinary impact on people’s lives.

Meanwhile, A Gifted Man is cancellation bait at CBS. So their solution is to line up more shows exactly in the same vein for next season?

Somebody should do a space opera show instead of yet another show that sounds like every other show. No wonder the failure rate of new shows on networks is so high. They're not giving people enough variety to spark their interest.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

I don't think the untitled feel-good show at CBS has any supernatural or SFF component.

 

[sidious618]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

Yeah, FX has no problem with Dylan McDermott's butt. But it's not keeping the ratings from diving.

Yeah, it's only the second highest rated cable show of the night.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

Well I thought it dropped in the second night but can't find the ratings now and I'm too lazy to look very hard. Anyway, the ratings have stablized now, so it's probably safe.

However, I have noticed a deplorable lack of Dylan McDermott's butt lately.

I don't think the untitled feel-good show at CBS has any supernatural or SFF component.

Deadline says it does, for what it's worth (I won't be checking it out):

CBS has bought two drama projects with spiritual elements: a procedural from The Defenders co-creator Niels Mueller and producer Aaron Kaplan

 

[ALF]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

I am tired of the networks trying to dress up your standard criminal procedural show with a sci-fi gimmick and then selling it as science fiction.

Well said. I sometimes watch the first few minutes of these cookie-cutter offerings, wondering how so many people can eat this stuff up time and time again and still find it interesting. It just seems so mind numbingly boring most of the time. And I do find mysteries interesting. Courtroom drama is the worst of the bunch, second only to reality tv.

I guess those fans could say the same of Trek, etc.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Re: the state of sf/f TV development for 2012-13

Deadline says it does

Spiritual doesn't necessarily mean supernatural. The way I read Deadline's story is that the untitled spiritual show doesn't have a supernatural element, while Maybe Angels does.