New pilot on Fox a good idea? Only a precog knows.
Story by David Clark
For all of my fellow movie and science fiction fans out there the buzz coming from Fox regarding new pilots could be both exciting and terrifying. Most striking on the upcoming programming schedules is a listing for a movie to television adaptation of the 2002 science fiction thriller starring Tom Cruise that will pick up in the same universe a short time after the movie ended.
At first glance this sounds great. If you have felt like television has been missing a staple science fiction series over the past few years, you might not be the only one. There was a golden age in television when shows like: Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, V, X-files, and Stargate(s) dominated science fiction programming. Even in modern times there have been popular, if not polarizing, shows like Doctor Who and Fringe that have knocked out their own place in the hearts of modern science fiction fans.
Hopefully Minority Report can step in and be a dominating and long term presence in the genre. It seems like a lot of science fiction programming in recent years have been short lived; Almost Human, Terra-Nova, or Dollhouse anyone? Fox is perhaps the most notorious of all the networks for not being able to maintain steady viewership for their science fiction programming. Add to that the knowledge of how difficult film to television adaptation can actually be and suddenly there is some doubt as to whether Minority Report even has a chance.
The show takes place after the film and 10 years after pre-crime has been all but eliminated in the Minority Report universe. In the film pre-cogs were special individuals that had the ability to glimpse crimes before they happened. Pre-crime law enforcement agents like Tom Cruise would then arrest the offending criminal before the crime could be committed thus eliminating crime before crime happens.
The television series has not yet been cast, but there is some information regarding the general plot. The show will follow a young female detective who is also a pre-cog. The main protagonist will be struggling with carving out a normal life for herself while having to deal with her precognitive ability. There is little to no information regarding how the individual episode formatting will go but there is potential for this show to be presented in a crime procedural fashion. It would be interesting to see a popular genre like the crime procedural moved into the realm of science fiction.
Given that the show is still a long way off, all that can be done today is to speculate and hope as to what this show might become. It would be nice to finally have a long airing and well written science fiction show dominate the television once again.
Source: Huffington Post
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