I’ve long said that Fox’s reputation for not giving genre shows a chance is an unfair one.* Many fans believe that the network hates sci-fi because of its history of canceling shows at the first sign of low ratings. However, in order for the network to have such an extensive history, they had to have put all those shows on the air in the first place. When you think about it, Fox has given more sci-fi shows a shot than SyFy has. (I checked.) And they just announced two new sci-fi series.
All that said, it’s not like both these shows are the best concepts ever. In fact one might be among the worst shows I’ve heard of in my life (and I’ve watched the pilot for Heil Honey I’m Home). The other sounds interesting, though a bit derivative.
I’ll start you off with the good one. Almost Human sounds a bit like Alien Nation but with robots. A cop who’s racist against androids is paired with an android partner and the show goes from there. Here’s the full description.
From Emmy Award-winning executive producer J.J. Abrams and creator/executive producer J.H. Wyman and starring Karl Urban, Michael Ealy and Emmy Award nominee Lili Taylor, Almost Human (working title) is an action-packed police drama set 35 years in the future, when police officers are partnered with highly evolved human-like androids. An unlikely connection is forged when a cop with an aversion to robots and a robot with unexpected emotional responses investigate cases in a brave new world. Almost Human (wt) is produced by Bonanza Productions Inc. in association with Bad Robot Productions and Warner Bros. Television. The series is created by J.H. Wyman, who wrote the pilot. The series is executive-produced by Wyman, J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk. Kathy Lingg (Person of Interest, Revolution, Fringe) and Reid Shane (Fringe) are co-executive producers. Brad Anderson (Fringe, The Killing) directed and served as co-executive producer on the pilot.
It sounds like it could be cool and more Karl Urban is always a good thing.
Now for the awful. Sleepy Hollow. Ugh. Hit-or-miss (but mostly miss) producers Kurtzman and Orci are behind this shitstorm where, no fucking kidding, Ichabod Crane is pulled from the past to help a modern-day cop solve crimes in the present. Oh, and Len fucking Wiseman directed the pilot. Here’s what the press release has to say.
From co-creators/executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (the Star Trek and Transformers franchises, Fringe), the thrilling new action-adventure Sleepy Hollow is a modern-day retelling of Washington Irving’s classic. ICHABOD CRANE (Tom Mison) is resurrected and pulled two and a half centuries through time to find that the world is on the brink of destruction and that he is humanity’s last hope, forcing him to team up with a contemporary police officer (Nicole Beharie) to unravel a mystery that dates all the way back to the founding fathers. Sleepy Hollow is from K/O Paper Products in association with 20th Century Fox Television. The series is co-created by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Phillip Iscove and Len Wiseman (Hawaii Five-0, Underworld and Total Recall). The series is executive-produced by Kurtzman, Orci and Wiseman and Heather Kadin. Iscove serves as supervising producer. Wiseman directed the pilot.
The fact that Fox picked this up and passed on Locke & Key a couple years ago fills me with a kind of confused rage that I can’t even begin to describe. Really? Time travelling Ichabod Crane? I… I can’t even… with this shit.
* – Note: this is probably the only thing I’ll defend Fox about.
