TV News Nuggets: New TV Shows

It’s that time of the year again when networks are looking around and searching for new TV shows for next fall. And may I say that we’ve got quite an interesting bunch so far. If some of these projects turn out as great as I’m hoping they can be, I’m going to have trouble fitting it all in my schedule.

Dollhouse
Finally Joss Whedon is returning to TV! This news isn’t exactly new, but it’s one TV show I’m dying to see. Dollhouse is created/written/produced by Joss Whedon and has been picked up for 7 episodes by FOX. Yep, the same FOX that’s responsible for the deaths of countless innocent series. So don’t hold your breath (just warning). The TV show will feature Buffy-alum Eliza Dushku as Echo:

… a young woman who is literally everybody’s fantasy. She is one of a group of men and women who can be imprinted with personality packages, including memories, skills, language—even muscle memory—for different assignments. The assignments can be romantic, adventurous, outlandish, uplifting, sexual and/or very illegal. When not imprinted with a personality package, Echo and the others are basically mind-wiped, living like children in a futuristic dorm/lab dubbed the Dollhouse, with no memory of their assignments—or of much else. The show revolves around the childlike Echo’s burgeoning self-awareness, and her desire to know who she was before, a desire that begins to seep into her various imprinted personalities and puts her in danger both in the field and in the closely monitored confines of the Dollhouse.

Sounds interesting, right? For more info on the other characters, take a look at Ausiello’s report. They’re still busy with the casting of those characters, but I’m curious to see if we’ll get any more familiar faces. [Source]

Caprica
I’ve been waiting for ages for this TV show to be greenlighted and today it finally has. It was first announced way back in April 2006, only to get stuck in the fiery pits of Development Hell. The show will be a prequel to Battlestar Galactica, focusing on events 70 years before the current BSG series. It’s been described as television’s first science fiction family saga:

The series will revolve around two families: the Adamas and the Graystones. Joseph Adama, father of future Battlestar commander William Adama, is a renowned civil liberties lawyer who becomes an opponent of the artificial intelligence/Cylon experiments wrought by the Graystones, owners of a large computer corporation that builds the first Cylons.

We need more good scifi shows on TV and while I’m normally not a fan of spin-offs, in this case it could turn out really great. Especially because the “mother” series is wrapping up before production on Caprica starts and I’m guessing most of the production team will continue working on that. [Source]

Cupid
Ten years ago, before Veronica Mars, Rob Thomas had another little short-lived TV show called Cupid. Now the ABC has asked him to write a pilot for a new version of this show. I never watched the original show, but I’ve heard from various people that they used to love it. The old show starred Jeremy Piven as:

Trevor, a man who believes he’s Cupid and must fix the problems of couples on Earth so that he may gain access to Mount Olympus and begin sipping ambrosia and living the good life. The catch? He lost all his mythological abilities. The other catch? He may just be a normal guy who is missing a few screws.

It sounds like a great plot and if Rob Thomas stays on board for the entire series, I’m definitely going to tune into this one. [Source]

Beverly Hills, 90210
Rob Thomas is a busy, busy man. Besides being asked by ABC for a Cupid-remake, the CW has approached him to write and produce a re-envisioning of Beverly Hills, 90210. I would have skipped this, if Rob Thomas wasn’t involved, cuase come on do we really need this? Don’t get me wrong, I get that people like the drama/soap series about rich kids with problems (The O.C., Gossip Girl), I’ll admit I’m one of them, but why a remake of 90210? Why not something completely new? The list of characters came out today and so far I’m not seeing anything to get excited about. Ah well, I also didn’t get hooked on The O.C. until half-way season one, so I’ll just wait and see how it goes. [Source]

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog
For me, this sounds too good and way too weird to be true, but I’m completely geeking out on this small project. It’s a three part Web musical (with each episode only being 10 minutes) written by Joss Whedon and his brothers during the writer’s strike. The idea is this:

It’s the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to.

To make it even better, the role of the super villain Dr. Horrible will be played by Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) and the role of the hero Captain Hammer goes to Nathan Fillion (Serenity, Buffy). Can this project get any better than this? [Source]

Alice
I kind of liked Tin Man, the SciFi Channel re-imagination of The Wizard of Oz. It wasn’t as great as I thought it would be, but still was pretty entertaining. The same creative team responsible for Tin Man will be back with another re-imagination, this time of the classic Alice in Wonderland. I can see how this can work; it seems like the perfect story to adapt to a scifi setting. I’m surprised actually that no one has done it before (or am I just blanking here?). I wonder what type of adaption it will be though? Will it follow the path of Tin Man with other dimensions? Or virtual reality? Or maybe something less obvious like space travel? [Source]