ood heavens, it's pilot season again—my fourth as host of "The Cassutt Files." (An anniversary gift? You shouldn't have. But if you insist, I'd like the British racing green and the leather seats, thanks. And could you add the cup holder?)
Sorry, I'm avoiding the subject. Some time back—in fact, my second outing here in 2001—I wrote a column called "Too Much Sci-Fi," in which I deplored the glut of sci-fi series then on the air and in the works. (I can still hear the echoing laughter. ...) My fear then was that these shows would underperform in those all-important ratings, thus confirming the typical network sentiment that "sci-fi can't deliver big numbers."
What I failed to see was the rise of "reality" (which we will call "unscripted," or more precisely, "loosely scripted") series, from Survivor to American Idol to The Apprentice—which made it difficult for any scripted series, sci-fi or not, to perform.
This season there's no glut. In fact, it's getting difficult to find sci-fi at all.
Take CBS's new, and newly canceled, Century City. From writer-creator Ed Zuckerman (Law & Order) under the auspices of Paul Attanasio (Homicide) and Katie Jacobs, Century City's blend of a legal procedural format and sci-fi was rich with potential. It had a great cast, including Ioan Gruffudd (A&E's Hornblower), Hector Elizondo, Eric Schaeffer and several promising new folks—the storylines dealt with the looming implications of current trends in genetic engineering, sports and sex crimes with writing that was studded with wonderful throwaway lines ("It's as basic as four strikes and you're out. ...")
The jury is back, and the verdict is bad
Not that the series was perfect: It tried too hard to copy the overlit look like L.A. Law, and some of the characters remained unestablished ... these are the growing pains of any series.
But Century City premiered on a Tuesday night, its second episode was teased for Saturday—then didn't air until the following Tuesday. (The schedule was disrupted by sports programming, the improvised explosive device that damages almost every new network drama. ...) To no one's surprise, the numbers were dismal, and CBS understandably gave it the hook.
It was a good idea, though, and in a fair universe Century City might migrate to another, less demanding network.
Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital premiered strongly, then faded—a sign of an inherent weakness in the storyline? Or, again, a case of the wrong program for the network, in this case ABC. I don't know the answer, though I will confess that I was reluctant to devote 13 hours of viewing time to Kingdom Hospital. (It would have played better at six, I think.) ABC has had success with King in the past, and I hope they keep trying. (And I hope they keep trying limited series.)
Then there's Star Trek: Enterprise, which showed a bit of life and energy this past season with its Xindi arc and is said to be "on the bubble," TV network programming code for "life support."
Part of the problem is ratings—Enterprise is holding its own, but barely. The real problem is network "branding." UPN has always seemed halfhearted about programming for an "urban" audience (that is, black), which is the traditional route to build a new network.
But after failures with Twilight Zone and Jake 2.0, and success with America's Top Model, UPN is getting out of sci-fi at warp speed and going for a young, urban audience. I suppose it's possible they will try to "urbanize" Enterprise, which should be as amusing for the audience as it will be painful for the staff, but that can't possibly work. (It sure didn't work for Twilight Zone.) More likely, Enterprise will have one last chance: an order of 13 episodes, enough to give Viacom time to think of some place to repot the series. (How about Showtime, in tandem with Century City?)
New Fall shows are riding for a fall
Ah, but it's spring—pilot season—a time of hope. Sprinkled among the dozens of filmed, scripted dramas are several familiar sci-fi, fantasy and horror names: Lost in Space is back, under the title The Robinsons: Lost in Space, from writer Doug Petrie under the auspices of John Woo, among others.
Back, also, is Dark Shadows, from its original producer, Dan Curtis, now teamed with the incredibly successful John Wells. Both of these series are candidates for the WB schedule.
Glenn (Moonlighting) Caron returns to television with Medium, a series about a psychic. This is for NBC, as is Revelations, universally described as a "biblical X-Files." The writer is David Seltzer, who brought us The Omen.
Revelations is a logical attempt by network TV to capitalize on Mel Gibson's incredibly successful and controversial The Passion of the Christ. After all, what is the logical sequel to that film if not the last book in the Bible? The only surprise for me is that there aren't a few more pilots dealing with religious family themes, a la CBS's successful Joan of Arcadia.
CBS isn't completely out of the fantasy business, of course—from producers Sandra Bullock and Denise Di Novi comes Sudbury, a series about a family of witches.
Most intriguing to me is Frankenstein, from best-selling novelist Dean Koontz, in partnership with Martin Scorcese and Tony Krantz, a dark-fantasy series based on the premise that the doctor and his monster have both survived to this day.
All this gloom and doom ignores what I like to call my own conflict of interest—the SCI FI Channel itself. Sci-fi is alive and well here, with Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda moving in, Stargate SG-1 thriving, Battlestar Galactica returning and Stargate Atlantis arriving. These are just the more traditional series. SCI FI also promises a number of fascinating miniseries concepts, from A Wizard of Earthsea (based on the Ursula Le Guin novel) to Farscape: Peacekeeper War.
No, sci-fi isn't disappearing. It's just migrating to dedicated channels.
Michael Cassutt has written scripts for such sci-fi or fantasy series as Twilight Zone, Max Headroom, Eerie, Indiana, Stargate SG-1 and, most recently, The Dead Zone. He is also a novelist whose new thriller, Tango Midnight (Forge) was recently praised by Air & Space magazine as "a great ride".
