List of SF and Fantasy pilots for the 6-nets.
POSTED BY: millernate
UPDATED: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 00:13
VIEWED: 5001
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Science Fiction and Fantasy Pilots for Fall 2003.
I’ve posted this a couple of other places (the official Firefly board and rec.arts.sf.tv to name the two) but I’ve updated a couple of the shows (particularly Joan of Arcadia) and I’m sure there are people here who do not go on those two forums. Also, before I begin my listing, I feel the need to get a couple of things out of the way. First, please be aware that these items are merely pilots and have more or less the same chance of getting made into a series as any other pilot. Secondly, an acknowledgement to http://thefutoncritic.com which provided the bulk of the information for this project (cast lists, descriptions) and the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) which provided the career backgrounds for a lot of people (particularly the creative folks). Thirdly, it should be noted that cast and creator information can change before the show goes to air. Lastly, I would like to discuss the format that I’ll be using to run down the pilots which is as follows:
Title
What its about: Series plot/format
Who has been cast (if anyone)
Who is making it (includes past credits)
Nathan says: My take on the potential quality and what the odds are of it making the fall schedule.
Now away we go:
UPN
Kamelot
What its about: drama in which king arthur is resurrected as a hip revolutionary who reigns supreme in a camelot-like future society.
Who has been cast: no information
Who is making it: Wes Craven & Marianne Maddelena (Scream, and Craven was a director on The New Twilight Zone and an Executive Producer for the “Nightmare Café” syndicated series) Ron Milbauer & Terri Hughes (screenplay for Idle Hands, and Hughes was the creator of the 2000 series “Tucker”)
Nathan says: I tend to be sympathetic to King Arthur stories and Wes Craven has done some nice things in the past but I don’t like the concept for this (since when was Arthur a “revolutionary”?) and the fact that they have writers from the Idle Hands movie is not inspiring me with confidence. I’ve heard that this is very likely to get on the Fall schedule if Craven can find a “showrunner” to handle the show day-to-day stuff, though of course nothing is confirmed.
Newton
What its about: hourlong drama that at first seems to be about a simple american family living in the suburbs but instead, the family will end up living in what's essentially a testing ground for strange, beyond-state-of-the-art inventions
Who has been cast: Amy Pietz
("Caroline in the City", she played Annie Viola Spadaro who I think was the lead’s best friend and she earned a Screen Actors Guild Nomination for the role)
Who is making it: Joel Silver (Executive Producer of The Matrix and the Tales from the Crypt projects) Craig Silverstein (he was a writer/co-producer on The Invisible Man writing about ¼ of the episodes, he was also a writer/supervising producer on The Dead Zone), David Nadelberg (has no track record that I can find).
Nathan Says: While it has less of a chance of making the schedule than Kamelot does it has a better shot at being a better series if it does make it (and Silver seems to be able to sell networks on stuff…). Silverstein has written for some projects that I’ve liked and the concept is at least a little different from most of the other SF tv shows that I’ve seen tried. The rest of the cast could make or break this series.
Weapon X
What its about: revolves around a geeky n.s.a. tech guy (Christopher Gorham) who's accidentally infected with "nanobot" technology that turns him into the agency's top weapon.
Who has been cast: Christopher Gorham("Odyssey 5"), Marina Black ("Six Feet Under"), Matt Czuchry (Eight Legged Freaks, 5 episodes of “Young Americans”).
Who is Making It: Silvio Horta (screenplay for Urban Legend, writer/Executive Producer of“The Chronicle”), Gina Matthews & Grant Scharbo.
Nathan Says: Out of UPN’s SF/Fantasy offering this probably has the least chance of making it to series. Which is a bit of a shame as Horta is actually a very talented writer/produ
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The WB
Chasing Alice
What its about: drama about a female inspector from scotland yard (sophie winkleman) who moves to new york to find her missing sister, alice; along the way, the character encounters characters inspired by the "alice in wonderland" mythology.
Who has been cast: Sophie Winkleman ("Waking the Dead")
Who is making it: Scott Lobdell ("ball & chain", the upcoming Tommy Lee Jones movie Cheer Up), Michigan j. productions, Suzanne Daniels
Nathan Says: I’m not sure if this is SF/fantasy or merely sureal but Lobdell has a pseudo-genre background (I think this is the former comic book writer) and the idea sounds somewhat fantastic. I’m not real sure about Winkleman as I’ve never seen her and she doesn’t have a lot of experience. If I’m right in guessing that Michigan J. Productions is the Warner Brothers production house then this one has a decent shot at making the Fall schedule. I’d be interested to see who will end up as the “showrunner” (as Lobdell doesn’t have enough TV experience to have the position) as that will determine a lot.
Family Curse (previously titled Shadow Walkers )
What its about: drama revolves around married archeologists and their teenage kids, who must track down creatures from folklore they accidently release from a Pandora's box;
Who has been cast: Ted Mcginley ("Married with Children"), Lindsay Frost (The Ring, Smoke Jumpers with our very own Adam Baldwin),
Brian Sites ("Eight Simple Rules"), Britt Irvin ("Taken")
Who is making it: Dan Angel & Billy Brown (writer/supervising producer for the Animorphs series, creator/writer/executive producer of the short-lived “Night Visions”, story editor for the X-Files, this is for Angel and Brown both)
Mel Gibson (yes that Mel Gibson), Bruce Davey, Greg Coote & Jeff Hayes (no idea, imdb lists 2 producers names Jeff Hayes, one of who wrote for Flipper, Time Trax and the 1988 Mission Impossible series and the other one is a professional producer of things like Law & Order who doesn’t have a writing credit on imdb).
Nathan Says: The poor performance of the similarly themed “Veritas” might hurt Curse’s chances of making the fall schedule. As for quality? Well a part of this depends on which Jeff Hayes is involved but Angel & Brown’s track record after leaving the X-Files is spotty and I’m not overly thrilled at the premise either. Which is a shame as I’d like to McGinely have a successful series as he’s one of the more unfairly maligned actors in TV (with the whole “Jump the Shark” theory…man people need to learn what a fool the guy who started that mess is judging by his comments any time he plays “pop culture critic”).
Fearless
What its about: drama based on Francine Pascal's series of young-adult novels about a girl born without the gene for fear (Rachael Leigh Cook)
Who is in it: Rachael Leigh Cook ("She's All That"), Eric Balfour ("Veritas: the Quest")
Ian Somerhalder ("Young Americans"), Bianca Lawson ("Save the Last Dance").
Who’s making it: Evan Charnov & Vincent Ngo (neither are anyone I’ve heard of), Jerry Bruckheimer & Jonathan Littman, Jeremy Carver
Nathan says: Depending on the popularity of the source books these could have a good shot at making it on the air (especially with the name Jerry Bruckheimer attached). Though I wonder about one Usenet critics comments about the concept namely if the lead character can’t feel concern why should we?
The Spaces
What its about: comedy follows the exploits of a family living in a space colony, including their slacker teenage son -- the first boy born in space
Who is in it: no casting is yet known
Who is making it: Dan Milano ("Greg the Bunny"), Laura Ziskin, Kevin Chinoy
Nathan Says: I’ve been waiting for a good SF comedy aside from Red Dwarf (and, on its good days, Futurama to a lesser extent) and I expect that I’ll still be waiting. A lot of people have said good things about “Greg the Bunny” but I sure didn’t see any when I tuned in. The fact that this seems to be a standard teen-sitcom transported into space is a
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