It seems like this story just keeps getting longer. La Jetée was only a 28 minute short before Terry Gilliam (or more accurately screenwriters David and Janet Peoples) added a bunch of new stuff and made 12 Monkeys a feature-length film at 127 minutes. So it really shouldn’t be all that surprising that SyFy is taking another crack at the concept and turning it into a weekly series.
The show’s headed up by Travis Fickett and Terry Matalas of Nikita and Terra Nova, while the pilot was directed by Jeffrey Reiner, who also shot the pilots for Helix, Caprica and David E. Kelley’s Wonder Woman.
Let’s take a look at the trailer.
Yes, that’s Aaron Stanford, X2‘s Pyro, subbing in for Bruce Willis. The series has a lot of actors like that in it, guys with a “hey cool, it’s so-and-so from some-geek-property” cache. Kirk Acevedo (Fringe), Zeljko Ivanek (Revolution) and Noah Bean (Nikita) for example. Amanda Schull (Suits) takes over for Madeleine Stowe as Kathryn Cassandra Railly. No word yet on who has to try to fill Brad Pitt’s shoes.
The thing is, while it doesn’t look terrible it also doesn’t look particularly good either. And with its predecessors being such classics, the show has a lot to live up to. Can these creators and this cast pull it off on this network? I’m pulling for them. I really am. But I’d be really surprised if this is SyFy’s next Stargate.
