Re: sf/f TV development news - 2012
Here are the totals so far for 2012-13.
The broadcast networks are pretty much done with pickups, but cable is still to be heard from. For cable, I think the rules are different, and they don't have to go through the final culling process in May that knocks out about half the contenders.
It's a good haul, 26 shows so far, but not a single space opera!
Sci Fi - 15 series
Arrow (CW) – adaptation of Green Arrow that sets him in a new world with an original story that is not based on the comics.
Beautiful People (NBC) - character-driven futuristic “what if” drama where families of mechanical human beings exist to service the human population… that is until some of the mechanicals begin to “awaken.”
Defiance (SyFy) – centers on Jeb Nolan, the law keeper in the bustling frontier boomtown of Defiance that is one of the new world’s few oasis of civility and inclusion. Nolan is a former Marine who fought in the alien conflict and suffered the loss of his wife and child in the war. The trauma transformed him into a lone wanderer in the wilds of this new and dangerous world.
Do No Harm (NBC) - medical drama about a brilliant neurosurgeon who wrestles with his dangerous alter-ego that threatens to wreak havoc on his personal and professional life.
The Dover Agenda (SyFy) - a thriller about a young man who is recruited by a future version of himself to work for a secret branch of Military Intelligence specializing in parapsychology and future tech. The nature of fate comes into play as the young man slowly begins to realize he did not turn out the way he thought he would.
Joey Dakota (CW) – based on Israeli TV series
Danny Hollywood, a time travel fantasy-musical in which a young documentary filmmaker travels back in time in order to prevent the death of her ’90s musical idol and finds that the story is even more complicated than she thought.
The Last Resort (ABC) - thriller set in the near future when the country is very fractured and revolves around the crew of a U.S. nuclear submarine who become hunted after ignoring an order to shoot nuclear missiles.
NEP League (TOON) - game show which transports contestants into magical, videogame-like worlds.
Revolution (NBC) -in this epic adventure thriller, a family struggles to reunite in a post-apocalyptic American landscape: a world of empty cities, local militias and heroic freedom fighters, where every single piece of technology — computers, planes, cars, phones, even lights — has mysteriously blacked out … forever. Giancarlo Esposito co-stars as ” a hard-as-steel military man with a genteel southern manner who may not always be what he seems”.
Rewind (SyFy) - revolves around a team of military field operatives and civilian scientists who must use untested technology to travel back in time to alter past events in order to change the future and avoid a devastating terrorist attack.
The Selection (CW) - based on the forthcoming series of books by Kiera Cass, it is described as an epic romance set 300 years in the future that centers on a poor young woman who is chosen by lottery to participate in a competition to become the next queen of a war-torn nation at a crossroads. Gregory Peck’s grandson plays The Price aka the competition’s prize.
Untitled Melrose Space Comedy (ABC) - centers on a normal family who moves into a condominium complex to find out that everyone living there but them are aliens.
Wired (BBCA)
- takes place in a world that looks exactly like today, except for one thing: this is a world with ‘Syns’ (‘Synthetic Organisms’), exact replicas of human beings and the newest luxury accessory money can buy.
Wired explores our evolving relationship with technology, the boundaries of society’s values and moralities, our hypocrisies and contradictions – holding up a mirror to who we are today and what we might become.
Working Class Hero (FOX) - an animated comedy starring actor-comedian Patton Oswalt, set in a world where superheroing is just another low-paid government job and centers on a dad (Oswalt) whose powers are no match for his misfit superhero co-workers and his demanding family.
Zombies and Cheerleaders (DIS) - the story follows Zed Necrodopolis, a typical high school student with one small caveat; he happens to be a zombie. Despite a high-tech wristwatch designed to curb any appetite he may have for his classmates, he and his zombie friends remain unpopular with the school's most influential group, the pom-pom wielding cheerleaders. Never one to back down from a challenge, Zed sets out to improve zombie student body relations and win the attention of Addison, the cheerleading squad's newest member.
Fantasy/Horror - 11 series
666 Park Avenue (ABC) - drama about an innocent couple from the Midwest that moves to New York and gets hired to be resident managers of a building on the Upper East Side where unbeknownst to the couple, the residents have all unwittingly made deals with the Devil to have their deepest needs, ambitions and desires fulfilled. Terry O’Quinn cast in lead role.
Beauty and the Beast (ABC) – based on the classic tale. Probably a lead-in to
Once Upon a Time.
Beauty and the Beast (CW) - revival of the cult 1987-1990 series that aims to not only modernize and CW-up the love story but also add a procedural twist.
The Dead Beat (BBCA) - two cops, one dead and one alive, become a reluctant team, working from leads in the world of the dead to track down killers in the world of the living. Subverting the crime genre,
The Dead Beat brings a whole new meaning to cold cases, underworld informants, dead leads and buried evidence.
Gotham (ABC) - drama about a female cop who, after pursuing a seemingly unsolvable case, discovers a magical world that exists within New York City.
Isabel (NBC) - centers on an otherwise normal angry middle-class family that wrestles with the challenges of everyday life while raising a daughter who has magical qualities.
Legion (SyFy) – adaptation of the movie, which chronicles the human race’s battle for survival against God’s legion of angels sent by him to bring on the Apocalypse. The people get an unlikely ally in Archangel Michael who disobeys God’s order and decides to help them.
Midnight Sun (NBC) - drama which revolves around a police investigation into disappearance of a remote cult that slowly uncovers the darkest secrets of the region and its inhabitants, as well as a grander political conspiracy and environmental disaster from which the cult members are attempting to escape.
Midnight Sun centers on a female FBI cult specialist who starts an investigation that uncovers a larger conspiracy. Stars Titus Welliver.
Mockingbird Lane (NBC) – formerly called
The Munsters, Bryan Fuller’s revival of the 1960s-series-turned-movie franchise billed as "Modern Family" meets "True Blood." (Picked up to pilot, but development moved out – probably won’t make 2012-13 season.)
Untitled Roland Emmerich election drama (ABC) - set in New York City against the backdrop of the Presidential race of 2012, an astrophysics grad student named Carter in NYC learns that he is the chosen one to destroy the forces of evil. Martin Landau co-stars as a blind former German soldier in World War II who is the executor of Carter’s father’s estate and one of Carter’s only true friends.
Zero Hour (ABC) – a bizarre twist of fate pulls a man who's spent 20 years as the editor of a skeptics magazine into one of the most compelling conspiracies in human history: a spectacular mystery surrounding the Twelve Apostles.
Anything that's not a cop show in sci fi window dressing is good news. (Dead Beat definitely sounds like the overexposed type of sci fi.) And of course both Wired and Beautiful People are going over Caprica's territory...
