The CW Orders Up Six Genre-Related Pilots

In a seeming effort to provide us with all of our genre needs, the CW has ordered six pilots for series that are otherworldly, science fiction, or based on comics.  Here is some information about each of the six pilots that have been picked up.

Riverdale

Although he is a perpetual teenager, Archie is seventy-five this year. The CW has picked up the pilot for a live action Archie series, called Riverdale. Set to start filming in the spring, it will be written by the Chief Creative Officer for Archie Comics, Roberto Aguirre- Sacasa and will be produced by Berlanti Productions and Warner Brothers studios.

It is described as offering a bold, subversive take on the characters, and exploring the weirdness and darkness that lie underneath Riverdale’s wholesomeness. The show will include the entire cast of the comic books including Archie’s snobbish rival, Reggie Mantle and his goofy best friend, Jughead Jones. That’s a good thing, because you can’t leave out Jughead. He’s the comic relief.  Archie’s usual love triangle will be going on-torn between the girl next door, Betty Cooper, and the wealthy fashion plate Veronica Lodge.  A more recent addition, popular gay character Kevin Keller, will be important in the series.
Other characters from the greater world of Archie will appear, such as Josie and the Pussycats.

Unlike the characters in the CW series that are based on DC comics, The Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow, Archie is not a superhero. Although set in the present day, if the live action series was like the comic book it would be a lot like Happy Days, where the plot might revolve around trying to save the local hangout. There are  supernatural spinoffs from the Archie comics, like Sabrina the Teenaged Witch, and the occasional superhero that wanders in. It will be interesting to see how “genre” the series becomes. With mega-producer Greg Berlanti at the helm, who is already steering the three aforementioned series, along with Supergirl on CBS, it may be very surreal indeed.

Transylvania

Transylvania is a period piece, unsurprisingly. It’s set in the 1880’s and the protagonist is a headstrong young woman who is looking for her father, who has gone missing. She teams up with a Scotland yard detective who is in disgrace but not rightfully so. They witness famous villains and monsters being born.

The pilot was written by Hugh Sterbakov. Jeff Pinkner, Andre Nemec, Scott Rosenberg, Josh Applebaum and Hugh Sterbakov will be executive producers. Midnight Radio and CBS TV Studios will produce.

Mars Project

This Untitled Mars Project was originally going to be called “Colony“. The fact that a show named Colony just started on USA is probably why it is unnamed now.  The idea came from the lost colony of Roanoke, but the colony that is lost is on Mars. A team of explorers arrive at the planet to join up with the first colony, only to discover that the first settlers have vanished. The explorers are led by a woman whose husband is among the missing. They have to change their mission from exploration and settling the planet to searching for the missing and solving the mystery. It is described as a thriller. The pilot was written by Doris Egan of Reign, and Egan executive produces with  Frank Marshall for CBS Studios and Kennedy/Marshall’s Robert Zotnowski.

Mars is a hot topic right now and this could be very interesting. If they can’t call it Colony maybe they could name it Roanoke. Or Croatoan.

No Tomorrow

No Tomorrow is based on a Latin America comedy called How to Enjoy the End of the World. The original Brazilian series was nominated for an international Emmy in 2013. Billed as a romantic comedy, the potential series follows a risk-averse, straight arrow, female procurement manager at an Amazon-like distribution center who falls in love with a freewheeling man who lives life to the fullest because he believes the apocalypse is imminent. (Eight months and twelve days) To comedic and poignant results, they embark on a quest together to fulfill their individual bucket lists, according to Variety.

No Tomorrow comes from the Jane the Virgin collaboration of  executive producer Ben Silverman and writer/co-executive producer Corinne Brinkerhoff. It was written by Brinkerhoff and the comedy writing-directing team of Tory Stanton and Scott McCabe. Silverman and Brinkerhoff executive produce with Sean Canino for CBS Studios and Electus.

While it sounds like a lot of fun, with some potential for serious moments, of all the offerings here it is least likely to be genre. Unless, of course, the apocalypse actually happens.

Kevin Williamson’s paranormal drama

As yet untitled, Kevin Williamson’s paranormal drama script attracted the attention of top director David Nutter, who will direct. They are executive producing the pilot, which is about a young woman who starts experiencing paranormal phenomena and seeks the help of a parapsychologist.

Lauren Wagner is producing, and the project comes from Williamson’s OuterBanks Entertainment and WarnerBros. TV. This is Williamson’s third pilot order. The other two are A.P.B for FOX, and a reboot of the movie Time after Time for ABC, which is about a time traveling H.G. Wells. In the novel the movie was based on, H. G. Wells had actually built his time machine and traveled through time, chasing down Jack the Ripper, among other things.

Frequency

Do you remember the movie where Jim Cavaziel was a homicide detective who contacted his dad Dennis Quaid by ham radio, thirty years in the past, right before he had died? It was a surprisingly good and touching movie for such a flimsy premise. In this version it’s a female detective from our time who contacts her deceased father, also a detective, from the year 1996. They have to solve an unsolved murder together, patch up their relationship, and deal with the unintended consequences of changing the time line.

The new Frequency was written by Supernatural showrunner Jeremy Carver. It is being executive produced by Toby Emmerich, who wrote and co-produced the original thriller, Jeremy Carver,  Lin Pictures’ Dan Lin and Jennifer Gwartz, and John Rickard.

This is time travel of a very limited sort, with the ability to contact and change the past, despite not actually traveling through time.

All of the pilots have potential to become interesting paranormal, science fiction, or speculative fiction series. Fingers crossed that some of them survive to reach their potential.