Froodee

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ABC Orders 7 Intriguing New Pilots

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ABC has made a bold move in the current pilot season, announcing a whopping seven new dramas that have gone to pilot and could get picked up for full seasons. Most of them are from high-profile writer/creators, and almost all of them feature genre elements of scifi, fantasy, or horror.

First up is Georgetown by Josh Schwartz, who’s known for creating The O.C., Chuck, and Gossip Girl. Written by Will Fetters (Remember Me, The Lucky One), Georgetown is a soap following the young people who operate behind the scenes of Washington, DC’s most powerful players. Real-life journalist Ashley Parker is on staff as a consultant for this, Fetters’ first TV series.

Next is a show with a title that’s sure to raise some eyebrows (and some controversy from the Bible Belt), Good Christian Bitches, from Robert Harling (Steel Magnolias). It’s based on a novel by first-time author Kim Gatlin. Her tale of “Desperate Housewives on steroids” finds a recently divorced mother of two, Amanda Vaughn, moving back to her old stomping grounds in Dallas where she witnesses first hand the dangerous side of gossip.

Hallelujah is a mythical tale of good and evil, where the endless battle between the two is being waged in the small town of Hallelujah, Tennessee. When a stranger comes to town, he bears the power to change the place’s dynamic with his benevolent mixture of peace, justice, and faith. Each episode is said to end with a song sung by the town’s gospel choir. Hallelujah is created and written by Desperate Housewives‘ Marc Cherry, marking his first new show since that ABC hit.

Identity is an action procedural that follows an elite police unit that fights the 21st Century crime of identity theft. It’s written by John Glenn (Eagle Eye).

Next, Once Upon a Time is about a small town in Maine “where the magic and mystery of Fairy Tales” is real. The main character is a woman with a troubled past who’s mysteriously drawn to the town. Once Upon a Time is noteworthy because it was co-developed by Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, though he’s not expected to have an ongoing presence on the show. Instead his co-creators (and former Lost staff writers) Edtward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, who most recently wrote the feature film Tron: Legacy, are overseeing this high-profile series.

Revenge is a modern retelling of Dumas’ classic The Count of Monte Cristo, wherein a charismatic, mysterious young woman takes on the role who returns to her home to exact revenge on the people who destroyed her family. The twist: her home is the Hamptons. Revenge is written by Mike Kelley (Swingtown).

Finally, The River, which like Good Christian Bitches was won after a bidding war, is about a family who travels deep into the Amazon jungle to locate and rescue their missing father. The River is described as a “horror drama” written by Paranormal Activity‘s Oren Peli and Paranormal Activity 2‘s Michael Perry. But ABC asked for a rewrite of the pilot script to hone the concept, so Michael Green (Heroes, Kings) was brought in, after which ABC gave it the green light.

Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome Concept Art

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Syfy’s Blastr.com has posted the very first concept art from Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome, which is currently in development for the network. The four pieces of art — by illustrator Peter Rubin — show some truly tantalizing scenes that depict just how action-packed this series will be.

There’s a shot of an older-model Raptor tearing through Galactica‘s hangar bay, which itself is being blasted to bits. Love the “teeth” on the Raptor!

Another image depicts a mechanical Cylon that’s taken on the shape of a human female, with just a few hints of skin on its exoskeleton. The female Cylon is standing in a rather Six-like pose, don’t you think?

This particularly intriguing illustration shows a snowy battlescape with a Dune-ish giant snake on the attack, which Blastr says is called a “Cython.”

Finally, there’s an entirely new model of Cylon Centurion.

I haven’t been terribly excited about this Galactica spinoff… until now. If the show can actually be made at this level of production values, while taking us deeper into the history of the Cylon/Human war… then okay, I’m in.

Marvel Readies Properties for TV, Including New ‘Hulk’

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The old Incredible Hulk series starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno is arguably Marvel’s most successful and most respected foray into live-action TV. So it should come as no surprise that now that Marvel has created its own TV division, Marvel Television, that the House of Ideas sees a new Hulk series as its key first property.

The original Hulk series aired on CBS, but since Marvel is now wholly owned by Disney, naturally they’re utilizing some synergy with the mouse’s very own network, ABC. Comic book scribe and former producer on such series as Lost and Heroes, Jeph Loeb, is heading up Marvel Television, and is currently on the hunt for a showrunner for ABC’s new Hulk. Another major property on his to-do list is Cloak & Dagger for ABC Family, about two runaways who team up after they’re injected with a powerful drug that gives them superpowers. In the comics, they’ve spent the majority of their crime-fighting days waging war on illegal drugs and those who traffic them.

The Hulk will also be hitting the big screen soon in Marvel’s big superhero team-up  film, The Avengers, which is being written and directed by genre icon Joss Whedon. Mark Ruffalo is taking over the film role from Edward Norton, but it’s unknown if the TV show will have any connection to the movies. (I’ll watch it — as long as they do the Planet Hulk storyline at some point.)

Other Marvel properties being considered for live-action TV series include Heroes for Hire, The Eternals, Agents of Atlas, Alter Ego (based on the Alias comic book by Brian Michael Bendis, a TV series about which Bendis has been trying to get off the ground for years, so very interesting that it’s now landed back in Marvel’s hands), Moon Knight, The Hood, Ka-Zar, Daughters of the Dragon, and The Punisher (presumably for a pay cable network, which would let the show go all out with adult content).

Yet Another Blog Sold to CBS

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I know what you’re thinking: What’s in the drinking water over at CBS TV? And when will this madness end?

Actually, this time, the idea sounds like a winner. Ashton Kutcher has once again spearheaded the television sitcom rights of a popular weblog/Twitter feed to CBS. Dear Girls Above Me is a blog written by a man named Charlie McDowell, where he chroniclesthe “annoying dumb things” that the two girls who live in the apartment above him say on a regular basis and adds his own witty responses. McDowell himself is expected to work as one of the show’s writers.

The blog is a riot; you should check it out immediately. The titular “girls” are ridiculously stupid and entitled, cut from the same cloth as Paris Hilton and her ilk. Which makes them perfect fodder for sitcom hijinks.

But after all the blogs that have been snatched up lately for TV, I think it’s time to draw the line. Okay, Ashton? Know when to “no more.”

NBC Nabs X-Files-ish Pilot ‘Echelon’

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The man who wrote the screenplay for the movie 300, Michael Gordon, has created a series that NBC‘s picked up called Echelon. Gordon will executive produce alongside Imagine Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Television.

Echelon is based on the covert database used by the U.S. for eavesdropping to watch for terrorist-related keywords in phone calls, emails, and other forms of normal communication. The show follows a team of investigators who investigate the “less than 1%” of all data that’s seemingly captured inexplicable phenomena that may be chalked up to the paranormal.

So, basically it’s The X-Files for the 21st Century.

Here’s the kicker. The team’s name is the Global Hierarchical Observation Strategy Taskforce, or…

(Wait for it…)

G.H.O.S.T.

Love the premise, but that name gives me flashbacks to S.P.E.C.T.R.E. from the old James Bond movies, and not in a good way.