sf/f TV development news - 2013

[RJDiogenes]

Heiroglyph has potential. It sounds like an ancient Egyptian twist on It Takes A Thief.

 

[Sindatur]

Hieroglyphs could be cool. But I'm assuming they'll go with a mostly white, and probably British, cast, instead of, you know, people who look like they could have actually lived in ancient Egypt.

What... Liz Taylor lived back in ancient Egypt, in fact she was a Queen or something

 

[JD]

ABC Gives Cast- Contingent Pilot Order To Paranormal Comedy

The project, based on an Australian format, was developed at ABC last season when it had a put pilot commitment. Strange Calls centers on good-hearted, bumbling Boston cop Toby Banks, who is exiled to night duty on Nantucket island, where strange, unexplainable occurrences become the norm nine months out of the year. Working out of a creaky lighthouse on the outskirts of town, he is teamed with Gregor, the eccentric lighthouse keeper and local paranormal authority. The two make an unlikely crimefighting duo dealing with the “strange calls” that come into the station at night.

Hulu has added the original Aussie version of (The) Strange Calls. They have 6 episodes altogether, but only the first 2 are free.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Chuck co-creator Chris Fedak is returning to NBC with another hourlong project about ordinary people acquiring extraordinary abilities

The untitled Chris Fedak project revolves around four “broken” people from different walks of life who all have one thing in common — a new chance at a normal life thanks to an anonymous organ donor whose body is used to cure them of their ills. But the ordinary becomes extraordinary when they learn that the mysterious donor was Earth’s mightiest hero, and now each literally carries part of him inside themselves.

 

[RJDiogenes]

That's pretty twisted. I like it.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

NBC Orders Drama Script Based On Remy Chandler Book Series

Thomas Sniegoski’s Remy Chandler urban fantasy six-volume novel series, about an angel who, having grown weary of celestial warfare, chose to embrace earthly life and develop a deep appreciation for humans and their vices. The project is described as a procedural with humor, questions of faith and fate, and a very distinct partnership. Bill Chais is attached to write and exec produce. Fox-based Jonathan Levin is EP. On Sniegoski’s Remy Chandler website, the Boston private eye is described as a guy with many useful talents, including but not confined to, making himself invisible, speaking any language (including the language of animals), and thought-reading.

 

[Christopher]

A private eye who can read minds? Doesn't that make the mystery-solving rather too easy?

 

[Vendikarr]

A private eye who can read minds? Doesn't that make the mystery-solving rather too easy?

Mind reading isn't admissible as evidence, so knowing who isn't the same thing as having the evidence for a conviction. It could be like Columbo, where he knew who did it, but had to prove it.

 

[Christopher]

Mind reading isn't admissible as evidence, so knowing who isn't the same thing as having the evidence for a conviction. It could be like Columbo, where he knew who did it, but had to prove it.

But that's not the point. The appeal of mystery/detective stories isn't in whether a conviction is attainable; in fact, many mystery stories end without a courtroom-level burden of proof being met. Mysteries are stories about solving puzzles, about using observation and clever deduction to uncover the truth. The detective's victory lies in figuring out the killer's identity, solving the puzzle. That's the climax of the story. Even in Columbo, the audience knew the answer in advance, but Columbo himself still needed to investigate, observe, and deduce. He didn't "know" who did it, he just suspected, and had to find the evidence to confirm his suspicions. Sometimes he didn't suspect the real culprit until nearly the end of the story. So it was still about the detective using his wits and skill to deduce the answer. Just magically sensing the answer would be cheating.

 

[stj]

A private eye who can read minds? Doesn't that make the mystery-solving rather too easy?

Doesn't help Sookie Stackhouse.
Even if you give the lead more brains than her, as the short-lived Canadian series The Listener showed, there are other aspects, as well as the admissible evidence problem, to be followed. Or, if you admit literary SF as precedent, a mind-reading detective was pretty interesting in The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester. (No, not the Stallone movie!)

 

[JD]

Chuck co-creator Chris Fedak is returning to NBC with another hourlong project about ordinary people acquiring extraordinary abilities

The untitled Chris Fedak project revolves around four “broken” people from different walks of life who all have one thing in common — a new chance at a normal life thanks to an anonymous organ donor whose body is used to cure them of their ills. But the ordinary becomes extraordinary when they learn that the mysterious donor was Earth’s mightiest hero, and now each literally carries part of him inside themselves.

Interesting. So I wonder if they will all develop the same abilities or if they different organs will give different abilities.

 

[Christopher]

Interesting. So I wonder if they will all develop the same abilities or if they different organs will give different abilities.

Oh, I'd expect different abilities. The one who gets the eyes has super-sight, the one who gets the heart becomes super-strong, something like that.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

ABC to Adapt Korean Drama ‘Nine: Nine Time Travels’

Written by Derek Simonds, the untitled drama, described as part thriller, part epic love story, centers on a man with the ability to travel 20 years back in time who, in trying to alter a murder which destroyed his family, sets off a chain of events that impact the woman he loves and threatens his own life. He embarks on an odyssey through time to make things right.

A Reboot of Charmed Is in the Works at CBS

 

[JD]

I don't understand rebooting something so recent. To me rebooting should be done to old stuff that we haven't seen done in a modern style.

 

[Christopher]

I don't understand rebooting something so recent. To me rebooting should be done to old stuff that we haven't seen done in a modern style.

Well, as the article says, supernatural stuff is fashionable now, so people are looking for anything that fits the bill. And Charmed was and still is a very popular show, bewilderingly.

 

[Taylirious]

Reboot everything!

 

[RJDiogenes]

Every show on TV should be various reboots of Leave It To Beaver-- darker and grittier reboots of Leave It To Beaver.

 

[lennier1]

We definitely need a reboot of Lost and Breaking Bad!

 

[FreezeC77]

ABC to Adapt Korean Drama ‘Nine: Nine Time Travels’

Written by Derek Simonds, the untitled drama, described as part thriller, part epic love story, centers on a man with the ability to travel 20 years back in time who, in trying to alter a murder which destroyed his family, sets off a chain of events that impact the woman he loves and threatens his own life. He embarks on an odyssey through time to make things right.

http://www.vulture.com/2013/10/reboot-of-charmed-is-in-the-works-at-cbs.html

Nine times Nine is my favorite show that I've watched in the last year, but I'm not sure how it adapts to US television because like most Asian dramas it is a self-contained story that doesn't fit the seasonal US TV type thing. The show ran for 20 episodes and the story was finished.

Kim Yun Jin (Sun from Lost) is involved in this as a producer so I'm hopeful that we might actually see more Asian characters in the series. Of course history and my brain tells me this is probably going to wind up like a lot of other ABC series and probably put on Thursday night at 8PM and canceled.

 

[lennier1]

That could actually work because it's serious enough (often the case with Korean TV).
OTOH, I don't think the more light-hearted Japanese stuff like Papa to Musume no Nanokakan would translate to western countries.