sf/f TV development news - 2013

[Greg Cox]

^^^ That show sounds like Prince Harry's idea on how to find a great wife. LOL

The strip billiards episode will be classic!

 

[Temis the Vorta]

JJ Abrams is a busy boy. His robot cop pilot is picked up at FOX (which needs a sci fi series in the mix now that Fringe is over.)

The untitled Warner Bros. TV/Bad Robot-produced project is described as an action-packed buddy cop show, set in the near future, when all LAPD officers are partnered with highly evolved human-like androids.

...

This is one of two dramas from A-list auspices this season set in a world where human-looking robots co-exist with humans. The other, from Howard Gordon and Josh Friedman, which has a big penalty at NBC, is still awaiting word. NBC also is yet to pull the trigger on Abrams’ high-concept drama with Alfonso Cuarón, which has a pilot production commitment and had been exploring casting since December.

PS, here's more on NBC's robot crime show. Sounds like a similar idea but with a bigger canvas.

...thriller soap set in a world much like ours, where human-looking robots are commonplace. After a routine homicide explodes into the first robot-on-human murder, the lead detective must solve the case and investigate a growing robot rebellion while dealing with the impact on his own fractured family.

 

[Christopher]

I'm more interested in the Gordon/Friedman premise, but I guess nobody's going to want to turn down an Abrams-connected project after yesterday's news.

 

[Taylirious]

http://www.ksitetv.com/oxygen/three-more-pilots-for-the-cw-still-no-amazon-or-tomorrow-people/19187

The Hundred: The hour-long entry is set 97 years after a nuclear war has destroyed civilization. A spaceship housing the lone human survivors sends 100 juvenile delinquents back to Earth to investigate the possibility of re-colonizing the planet. Based on an upcoming book by Kass Morgan.

Oxygen: The most interesting-sounding of the new entries, Oxygen is about an epic romance that ignites between a human girl and an alien boy when he and eight others of his kind (The Orion 9) are integrated into a suburban high school 10 years after they and hundreds of others land on Earth and were immediately consigned to an interment camp where they’ve been imprisoned ever since.

Reign: A fantastical drama which centers on the previously unknown and untold story of Mary Queen of Scots’ rise to power when she arrives in France as a 15-year-old, betrothed to Prince Francis, and with her three best friends as ladies-in-waiting. The hour-long effort will touch on the secret history of survival at French Court amidst fierce foes, dark forces, and a world of sexual intrigue.

The Hundred & Oxygen are genre...but Reign sounds most interesting to me. LOL.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The CW is getting mighty ambitious, I'm interested in all three. If they do Reign in the style of The Tudors (with broadcast tut-tutting re: sex and nudity of course), they could have something worthwhile. Mary Stewart vs. her cuz Liz Tudor in an epic royal smackdown for the ages is about as sweet of a CW-ready story as you could hope for.

 

[stj]

^^^Mary went to France when she was about five years old, not fiteen. She was married at 15, not betrothed, I think. She was Queen of France at 16, but her husband died after reigning less than a year.

I was double checking my memory at Wikipedia, when I noticed it says Mary was 5'11"!

The truth is actually more exotic than Hollywood, but we're obviously getting the supposedly dramatic version.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

JJ gets another greenlight.

NBC has greenlighted Believe, Abrams’ project with Oscar-nominated filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón...about the unlikely relationship between a girl in possession of a great gift/powers — which will come into their own in seven years — and the man who is sprung from prison to protect her from those trying to hunt her down.

Re: Mary, she was a very tall girl for the times. Her story is amazing, and if the CW tells one tenth of it, they will have a great series on their hands.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Cartoon Network development.

This caught my attention:

The Yoda Chronicles: LEGO Star Wars returns in epic style with THE YODA CHRONICLES, a thrilling, funny and action-packed new LEGO Star Wars story told in three animated TV specials! Set in the “Prequel” Star Wars timeline, THE YODA CHRONICLES stars the one and only Yoda—the Jedi Master who has seen it all, done it all, and taught generations of Jedi Knights—in an all-new adventure. With the help of a fresh class of Padawans, Yoda leads the Jedi in a desperate fight to stop Darth Sidious and his minions from creating a new super-weapon that could crush the Republic and win the war for the forces of Evil.

Not sure why that couldn't just be a storyline in The Clone Wars. A series on the ROTS-ANH years that tells us what Yoda, Obi-Wan and any other surviving Jedi were up to would be far more interesting to me.

 

[Taylirious]

Beware The Batman sounds interesting but Teen Titans Go! sounds more of the same with that group as previous series.

 

[Christopher]

Teen Titans Go! sounds more of the same with that group as previous series.

Not really, unfortunately, because the previous series actually did focus on action and adventure and fighting bad guys, whereas this new series is apparently going to be an expanded version of the recent DC Nation shorts, just comedy bits about what goes on when the Titans aren't fighting crime. Which seems rather pointless to me. Also the character designs will be different, closer to the chibi-esque versions used in the shorts.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

CW greenlights Tomorrow People pilot.

A well-trod premise to say the least, but it's all in the execution...

In the vein of X-Men and Heroes, Tomorrow People is the story of several young people from around the world who represent the next stage in human evolution, possessing special powers, including the ability to teleport and communicate with each other telepathically. Together they work to defeat the forces of evil.

 

[Taylirious]

Either way Teen Titans Go! doesn't interest me at all.

So what is up with Amazon? A no go!?!?

 

[Christopher]

CW greenlights Tomorrow People pilot.

A well-trod premise to say the least, but it's all in the execution...

Well, it is a remake of a British series.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Yep, and The X-Men comics have been around since the 60s. I'd like to see some variation on the theme, such as a near-future story where the enhanced abilities are the result of genetic engineering, rather than something that just popped up in the species for unexplained reasons.

Amazon pushed to next season.

EXCLUSIVE: The CW just wrapped its pilot orders for this season with eight pickups, including planted Vampire Diaries spinoff The Originals. Amazon was not among them, and I have learned that the network has decided to roll the Wonder Woman origin project to next season. Additionally, I hear the CW may order an off-cycle pilot.

Not terrible news - The Selection was pushed out a year, too.

 

[Taylirious]

Glad Amazon is still in the works.

 

[JD]

Cartoon Network development.

This caught my attention:

The Yoda Chronicles: LEGO Star Wars returns in epic style with THE YODA CHRONICLES, a thrilling, funny and action-packed new LEGO Star Wars story told in three animated TV specials! Set in the “Prequel” Star Wars timeline, THE YODA CHRONICLES stars the one and only Yoda—the Jedi Master who has seen it all, done it all, and taught generations of Jedi Knights—in an all-new adventure. With the help of a fresh class of Padawans, Yoda leads the Jedi in a desperate fight to stop Darth Sidious and his minions from creating a new super-weapon that could crush the Republic and win the war for the forces of Evil.

Not sure why that couldn't just be a storyline in The Clone Wars. A series on the ROTS-ANH years that tells us what Yoda, Obi-Wan and any other surviving Jedi were up to would be far more interesting to me.

Because it's LEGO, which is totally different than the Clone Wars stuff. LEGO stuff is just goofy fun, it's not at all serious. They've actually done a couple of other LEGO SW specials already.

 

[Christopher]

^Also because The Clone Wars is probably moving to Disney XD, whereas Warner Bros. retains the LEGO rights, so LEGO Star Wars is probably the only incarnation of Star Wars that they'll be able to keep on Cartoon Network.

 

[Taylirious]

http://tvline.com/2013/01/29/pilot-news-alice-wonderland-sequel-nbc/

The network has ordered a pilot for an Alice in Wonderland sequel series from CSI creator Anthony Zuiker, Matt Weinberg, JoAnn Alfano and Margaret Riley.
The project, titled simply Wonderland, will use Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel as a point of origin, but will be built around a new character named Clara.

Not to worry though, Zuiker & Co. haven’t forgotten about your old friend Alice. Turns out she will have assumed the role of Wonderland’s evil queen, and thus will be the woman Clara wages war against. Clara, for her part, is described as a gal whose life took “an unexplained turn for the worse,” and thanks to a message from “a mysterious stranger,” looks for answers in the kingdom of Wonderland.

ETA: I'd be interested in seeing this. Grimm could use a good companion, they are all alone with what ever NBC sticks with them on FRI nights and then Dateline.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

^Also because The Clone Wars is probably moving to Disney XD, whereas Warner Bros. retains the LEGO rights, so LEGO Star Wars is probably the only incarnation of Star Wars that they'll be able to keep on Cartoon Network.

Okay that does make sense. I wasn't aware there was any way The Cartoon Network could hang onto Star Wars going forward.

EDIT: buncha more pickups, from ABC. I'm making the executive decision that any series based on a theme park ride is automatically genre:

...themed Big Thunder Mountain ride is set in a mining town amid the gold rush in the American Southwest that gets hit by a natural disaster. The TV project centers on a brilliant, late 19th century New York doctor. He and his family are given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to relocate to a frontier mining town run by a powerful, but mysterious tycoon but quickly realize that not everything in Big Thunder is as it seems.

...

The Matt Lopez-penned Gothica, co-produced by the Mark Gordon Co., is described as a sexy gothic soap set in present day that weaves together a mythology that incorporates the legends of Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein and Dorian Gray among others. The concept seems similar to ABC’s fairytale drama Once Upon A Time but with characters from classic horror literature. Meanwhile, Penny Dreadful, Showtime’s straight-to-series drama from John Logan and Sam Mendes, features some of the same characters as Gothica – including Dr. Frankenstein and his creature, Dorian Gray and Dracula – but is set in Victorian London.

 

[JD]

I like stories that play around with classic characters, so I'll probably be checking that one... since I won't be able to watch Penny Dreadful until it comes to DVD.