9 replies on “Sci-Fi has huge lineup next year”

  1. Some of these sound interesting…
    …especially the Legion and Total Eclipse ones. I like the sound of Total Eclipse as it comes off as Harry Potter as written by H.P. Lovecraft, and the description of Legion reminds me of the Fox show Brimstone – which they also canned, even though it was pretty good – where Lucifer (as played by John Glover, IIRC) sends a dead cop back to earth to nab a bunch of escapees from Hell. But The Divide and Dead Lawyers? Seriously, the former sounds like a cross between Baywatch: Nights and WKRP, and the later like Angel meets The Practise, with a touch of Beetlejuice thrown in for good measure (actually, that might be good if they play it right..hmmm).

    The Stargate: Atlantis show sounds interesting, though the linked article is a little low on details. Sounds like they’re moving towards a Star Trek-like universe, with a couple of spin-off shows. Let’s just hope they don’t get their own version of B&B.

    Also, the Thing miniseries might have potential. John Carpenter’s The Thing is one of my favourite horror movies – it’s the psychological aspect (and if you can’t get past the semi-corny SFX, turn down the brightness on the set, it looks a lot scarier that way). A four or six hour miniseries would definitely be a must-watch. And, yes, I do know that the John Carpenter’s The Thing is a remake of the classic 1951 The Thing From Another World (which I’ve seen), and they’re both based on the John W. Campbell story Who Goes There? (how’s that for trivia?).

    Then again, these are the people that passed on Firefly

  2. Stargate: Atlantis

    If you’re interested in more details about “Atlantis” you can find just about everythign ever written, spoken, or speculated about it on gateworld.net

    (Which is incidently, the best resource for stargate info I’ve ever seen.)

  3. Atlantis?
    The only thing which appeals to me from the short description is Atlantis, and mainly due to the fact that there seems to be nothing better, and this seems to be the only show that come true on the Science Fiction premise.

    Seriously, is this SciFi Channel? Most of the other shows just seem bad jokes (Dead Lawyers, the series about the DJ and his dead sister, …). This could possibly capture the minds of some 12-year olds, but not the large public. Hm, I have to modify this a bit, probably they’ll dazzle us with special effects, …

    I am really waiting and hoping for a new and good SciFi show (and with the canning of Farscape, the expectations are high, after all, you need to replace it by something better, don’t you).

    On the bright side, my online downloads will reduce and I’ll be able to focus on getting high quality versions of old (good) shows.

  4. April 1st?
    Could they be a bit early? Some of that sounds like abject crap. Some could be interesting, ala G Vs. E, but no bets.

  5. My thoughts (i.e. it all looks bad)

    • STARGATE: ATLANTIS – This could be good, since SG-1 is a decent show.
    • DEAD LAWYERS – This looks horrendously dumb
    • THE DIVIDE – This also looks silly. I guess supernatural + DJ is supposed to equal edgy and hip.
    • LEGION – more supernatural stuff. This could be good in a quantum leap kinda way, but it requires many people to be possessed, and therefore will be cheesy.
    • PAINKILLER JANE – Pros based on it being written by the guy that wrote the Dune mini, but minus on YASPP (Yet Another Supernatural Power Premise)
    • CLIVE BARKER’S THE EVIL ONE – More supernatural mumbo jumbo that will probably be lame (because if it was gonna be good, it wouldn’t need Cliver Barker’s name attached to it)
    • TOTAL ECLIPSE – MOre supernatural crap. Come on, hasn’t this been done to death already, not to mention just in this list?
    • SUTURE GIRL – I predict this will be the “hot female lead shows clevage and spent 2 weeks learning kung-fu so we are supposed to watch it because we’re all supposed to be hard-up comic book readers who are too stupid to find free porn to satisfy our male desires”

    Here’s a thought for the SCI-FI channel: Produce a science fiction show! One in the future, where people shoot lasers at each other or something!

    Seriously, the problem with all these shows is the problem with a lot of sci-fi shows: The premise requires too much of a leap of faith and requires too much suspension of disbelief that your average viewer has nothing to identify with. And this is the most abused with all the stupid monster/supernatural power shows that SCI-FI seems to like so much (is latex cheaper than CG or something?).

    Look at “good” sci-fi shows. Each of them involves the either believable characters (e.g. Captain Picard is still a regular guy), or familiar situations (e.g. Clark Kent is an alien with super powers, but he still goes to high school, likes girls, and gets in fights with bullies). The key is take a “normal” show and the tweak it in a sci-fi way. SCI-FI channel seems to start from idiotic premises and then try to make a decent show around, usually failing miserably.

    I know a lot of people like Farscape, but aside from that and the Dune minis, has sci-fi EVER produced a quality show? They seem to have quite a few resources available (given the quality of the Dune minis). Can they not think of better shows? Honestly, the above lineup of shows sounds so lame to me, who can stomach some pretty cheesy sci-fi, I can’t imagine that anyone other than a really hard-core genre fan is gonna watch these shows.

    • Re: My thoughts (i.e. it all looks bad)

      Here’s a thought for the SCI-FI channel: Produce a science fiction show!

      Amen. I think the proof will be not the idea, but how well it’s realized. I thought The Chronicle was going to be dumb, but it actually turned out to be one of their better series. Dumb concept + smart writing (Chronicle) > Smart Concept and Dumb Writing (Lexx, Andromeda, Mutant X, etc, etc).

      In other news – anyone else following Strange World? I’m catching episodes I missed when it was broadcast the first time ’round. (Not tough – I think they only aired 3)

    • Re: My thoughts (i.e. it all looks bad)
      I have this obnoxius habit where I need to play devil’s advocate; I apologize in advance.

      • Stargate Atlantis: First off, anytime a show has Atlantis in its concept, warning bells go off in my head. Also, have you noticed that sci-fi people are the only ones on the face of the earth who think that spin-offs are good things?
      • Dead Lawyers: If they manage to avoid the terms ‘wacky’, ‘kooky’, and ‘zany’, they could pull a good show out of this concept. I’m thinking just treat it as a serious law drama, with the whole dead thing just being a sub-plot. This does deal with the whole suspension of disbelief problem you were discussing.
      • The Divide: I cuold see this working in a Buffy style, as in recognize the ludicrousness of the concept, then play against audience expectations and add a good layer of depth to the show.
      • Legion: On the downside, I’ve never understood shows where someone sells their soul to the devil, and then goes around fighting evil (that means you, Spawn). Doesn’t Satan do a background check before hiring these people. On the plus side, I think this could work as a Dead Zone style thriller, with the hero not able to just kill the possessed individuals, but forced to get the demon to leave on their own accord. Could also be interesting to have reoccuring demons; just becasue it leaves one host doesn’t mean it can’t infect another.
      • Painkiller Jane: I have a perverse sense of hope for this show in that it’s about a heroine with a largely useless superpower. After all, while she can heal herself after a fight, it doesn’t particularly give her any advantage during a fight. She doesn’t have any x-ray vision or spider senses to allow her to find danger that others cannot see, nor does she have super strength or agility to solve problems that others cannot. Heck, while you can’t kill her, she could still be easily overpowered and imprisoned. If the writers work with these limitations, I can see hope for this show.
      • Clive Barker’s The Evil One: While the description wasn’t very clear, I see this as working in almost a Twilight Zone fashion: independent stories with just a very thin thread tying them together. This allows good and evil an equal chance of winning each episode, as there are no main characters as in Star Trek/Gate. Also, it could then come into a season finale where the thread between the stories is pulled tight and the different episodes of the season become one.
      • Total Eclipe: I’ll admit, I’ve always been a sucker for the magic school genre. On the one hand, if they can get the style of Terry Pratchett’s Unseen University, where the supernatural is left unabashedly out in the open, it could be quite humorous. On the other hand, if they decide to make it darker, it could go either like the Nightstalker, where this new prof. is the only person keeping all hell from breaking loose, or it could go into an X-Files/Lovecraft myth arc, which could be interesting if done properly.
      • Suture Girl: Well, the idea of having the lead be a former advertising exec does lend this show a bit more credibility, as long as they recognize that most executives in any line of business aren’t twenty-somethings with a knowledge of martial arts. If the heroine was mid-forties, badly scarred (as the name would suggest), and not experience with any weapon more dangerous than a can of mace, the show could do something.
      • Alright, I’m no writer, and most of the ideas I presented would most likely be worse than a Fox sitcom, but I think it’s unfair to just judge these shows based on a quick blurb on a website. Just think of the last time you tried to explain your favorite sci-fi show to someone who had never seen it, and remember the look on their face as you did. Even Asimov stories sound stupid when cut down to a three sentence blurb.

        The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the opinions of Boglin. Personally, I am looking forward to the next Stargate. Also, even I cannot believe that Dead Lawyers will be a good show.

      • Re: My thoughts (i.e. it all looks bad)

        Also, even I cannot believe that Dead Lawyers will be a good show.

        It’s gonna be a better show than one called Live Lawyers would be.

        Hey….where’s Firefly?

        • Re: My thoughts (i.e. it all looks bad)

          Also, even I cannot believe that Dead Lawyers will be a good show.

          It’s gonna be a better show than one called Live Lawyers would be.

          What, you never watch The Practice, Law & Order or Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law? Well… maybe not the last one.

          Hey….where’s Firefly?

          I believe that’s a question that everyone here would like answered. I want my Firefly…=(

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