Oh, damn. My first thought was Gina Torres. Would she rock this role or what? It's like a slightly less moral Zoe. The Sherwood show is also very Whedon-like. And that Kevin Sorbo show is very much like the Bruce Campbell movie My Name Is Bruce.

Glad to see Syfy is keeping up with the original content.

cabri | July 31, 07:36 CET

Syfy isn't known for its quality of original content. But they've been getting better IMO.

That being said, most of the shows mentioned in this press release sound terrible. Evil bosses set to destroy the planet? Romantic superpowers caused by a meteorite? These just sound terrible.

But the Orion show could be good. Depends a lot on who they get to play the leads, though. It sounds like it'll be a very character-driven show, so good actors is a must. It makes me miss Firefly, though.

jesse | July 31, 07:52 CET

That's interesting, a TV pilot starring Lee Majors titled "Me and Lee" shot like 3 years ago but was never picked up. I wonder if this is the same thing and now has SyFy's interest, or if it is a retooling of the concept to fit for SyFy and would need a new pilot, or if it only shares Lee Majors, the title, and probably a few behind the scenes peeps.

All of these sound like they could be great if done right. But then I generally posit that any concept can be great if executed well. I fear for them all though, it's so easy to do something badly.

bobw1o | July 31, 08:04 CET

We're Whedonesque! Looking at linoleum makes us miss Firefly! :)

kungfubear | July 31, 08:05 CET

Sherwood sounds a little Firefly like as well. Particularly if they cast Sean Maher in the role of a young man of privilege teams up with a misfit spaceship crew.

Zoic_Fan | July 31, 08:59 CET

Well, I might try it. But I'm not often impressed by the new shows I try. I was disappointed by Warehouse 13. Does it get better???

Whedon projects and a few others like BSG have made me so much less tolerant of most TV. I've been spoiled and am now ruined on most of it.

WhoIsOmega? | July 31, 08:59 CET

I was disappointed by Warehouse 13. Does it get better???

Not in my opinion. Watched the first 6 and then stopped, then watched the recent episode with Sean Maher and Jewel Staite in it and felt that one was worse if anything - the show never failed to take the obvious route, the tone's all over the place and the "banter" between the leads pretty painful.

We're Whedonesque! Looking at linoleum makes us miss Firefly! :)

Looking at linoleum with our eyes shut even ;).

That "Ball and Chain" idea has been around a while too, seems like a few years back when I first heard about it (maybe as a film originally ? Or comic ?).

Some stuff with potential though nothing that exactly leaps off the page, these short paragraph explanations almost never have enough detail to tell much and the blandest sounding show can be great if implemented well.

Saje | July 31, 09:05 CET

Eh. I gave you this (Ocean's 11 meets Firefly).

Simon | July 31, 09:31 CET

A world of no.

madmolly | July 31, 09:38 CET

A world of *yawn*. Warehouse 13 is IMO so bad that I hate seeing it on Jane E's resume, even though she bailed faster than JJ Abrams on a new project.

I've given Haven it's three ep chance and I don't think I'll waste another hour on it. Eureka is fun, with it's shiny new format (and James Callis), but it doesn't exactly rock my world.

My best SyFy hope is the return of Caprica. Nothing on that list looked especially interesting to me and certainly not original - but you never know. Hope for another Joss level SciFi or Fantasy series springs eternal, although what are the odds?

IMO there have only been three .... B5 (the ground breaker), BSG and T:TSCC.

Shey | July 31, 10:13 CET

Is Slingers a movie or a series? Looks like it's worth my attention.

Ivalaine | July 31, 10:19 CET

I think I'll give Orion, Sherwood and Legendary a try. I love Kevin Sorbo.

latinandgreek | July 31, 11:15 CET

@Ivalaine - Looks to be a series, and also looks to be pretty cool/fun. I'm interested.

kungfubear | July 31, 11:22 CET

Syfy isn't known for its quality of original content.

I disagree--any network that produces Farscape and Battlestar Galactica immediately rises above most networks. Their movies are so bad I sometimes wonder if they do it on purpose, but they have a great record for series and miniseries.

That "Ball and Chain" idea has been around a while too, seems like a few years back when I first heard about it (maybe as a film originally ? Or comic ?).

Yup, a comic book miniseries written by Scott Lobdell. I think I might actually have one or two issues of it.

Niels | July 31, 11:32 CET

It's not even made it to pilot status as far as I am aware. But I hope it does get picked up, Sean Pertwee is a great actor (and has the best voice in the business).

Simon | July 31, 12:24 CET

These bring to mind all of those pitches made in "The Player."

Zeros - Zombiebusters!

Legendary - "Remington Steele" (Post S1) for the classicist set

Ball and Chain - A romantic "Hancock." You know, there hasn't ever actually been a real SF romance show outside of "Lois and Clark." Which did pretty well until the writers lost all sense of any kind of story sense. And the SF romance novel (and Paranormal romance novel) market has really taken off in the last ten years. I wonder if they are trying to tap into it? An SF obsessive crossed with a romance obsessive? Scary to think about it. ;)

Sherwood - I'm trying to see how "Sherwood" can work as Robin Hood in space. I always felt like the point of Robin Hood was how intimate the scale was that he operated out of. It's my understanding that Sherwood forest was never a particularly big place and neither were the legendary Robin Hood's goals. I know that recent incarnations pit him against King John and for the political "salvation" of England and although those have worked fairly well, they still kept him basically in one place amongst "the People." Opening up their merry range to a corner of the universe or solar system...seems to me to be stretching it too far. I think it just sounds like just "guys" in space with co-opted names.

Orion - the "Firefly" heist of the week. I wish I could get excited. But it isn't "Firefly." *insert sigh of longing* It won't have the complex characters or the exquisite dialog. I just know it. *grump, grump* If I was still a little kid though... this one sounds like something I would have liked, thought was fun, and not minded it's probable all-on-the-surface nature and episodic structure. (I know I'm jumping to conclusions, but it's SyFy waving the Firefly flag in front of my face. I don't believe them and I just get irritated--I wish I didn't.) Where is a kid's entry point into SF television, these days BTW?

Me and Lee - Well... at least it isn't "The Bionic Zoo."

Human Relations - the quality of the writing is going to make or break this one. It has no action-y stuff to fall back on like the others.

BreathesStory | July 31, 12:55 CET

Syfy is a Universal company right?

Instead of trying to create Firefly-like projects, why not do something that guarantees success: a Serenity TV movie. Granted, the hope for that is nearly gone now, considering Joss has his Marvel universe to create and the rest of the crew is steadily employed. But it just seems like such a waste. They essentially hold the rights to make the darn thing, the franchise already has a rabid fanbase... sure, the budget would probably be higher than most of their similar projects, but I really think the payoff would be bigger, too. I think it would be the most watched movie ever to air on the channel.

But that's just me.

*goes to look at linoleum with my eyes closed*

jesse | July 31, 13:42 CET

Sherwood interests me only because that's the team behind Sanctuary, which I'm enjoying. The description doesn't thrill me. Actually, none of them do. Orion could be good or it could be terrible, there just isn't enough detail here to be sure.

Rachelkachel | July 31, 13:46 CET

The only time I'll watch Syfy is when they have one of their few and far between Firefly marathons. There's no other reason to watch this awful channel. And these new shows just sound like fail all around. But we'll see I guess.

mutt999 | July 31, 14:08 CET

I quite like Warehouse 13 and Eureka. Haven is slowly growing on me. I'll be giving all these a chance (at least 3 or 4 episodes). You can't tell anything from taglines and short descriptions of shows. It's always the execution that matters. Carry on with the judging and dismissing. :)

TamaraC | July 31, 15:24 CET

What happened to that sci-fi western FOX was looking at a while back? It had someone reasonably interesting attached, a Chuck writer or something. Did it just not even get to pilot?

Jaymii | July 31, 16:18 CET

Sounds positively dreadful.

petranef | July 31, 16:23 CET

Yeah I'm getting more of a "Relic Hunter meets Blakes 7" vibe.

viewingfigures | July 31, 16:32 CET

If only I could muster up some faith in the execution of these shows being any good.

Also, Sherwood - I wonder if his name's Prince Baron? Oh wait - I think they tried that already...

brinderwalt | July 31, 17:21 CET

Am I the only one who thinks "Human Relations" sounds an awful lot like Amber Benson's movie "Drones"?

azhippieinoz | July 31, 17:44 CET

First off: Slingers looks amazing. Here's hoping it gets made.

The rest of these leave me meh. "National Treasure meets Firefly?". So it's both one of the most entertaining short lived television shows of all time, and an insultingly dumb, terribly dull movie? ;) I kid, but most of these projects don't sound that great. I mean, the set-up to both Orion and Sherwood sounds like something that might work, in the hands of a very good writing and acting team. But most of the SyFy series have lacked either or both (or if they had both, they still managed to be disappointing). I.e.: not holding my breath for these.

GVH | July 31, 19:05 CET

On a related note, Where Does Syfy Get the Money for All Its Show Projects?

brinderwalt | July 31, 19:38 CET

Sherwood sounds more like Firefly to me. Outsider rich young man throws his lot in with scruffy space brigands for honorable reasons... I wonder if these shows will try going the serious route like BSG or if they will just stick with the light and non-seriousness of shows like W13 and Eureka? B/c with some of the shows listed that would make a big difference in whether they are any good...

F_TB | July 31, 20:10 CET

Yes, Eureka is mostly known for its general sense of lighthearted fun, but don't forget about episodes like (1x12) "Once in a Lifetime" and (3x04) "I Do Over", which are both brimming with pathos, urgency and sadness. Personally, that second example put me in tears and was so good, I immediately watched it again.

kungfubear | July 31, 20:27 CET

I don't see any news about Slingers on that page, so don't know how that topic came up. In my opinion, AMC should pick up Slingers. I don't quite trust SyFy to do it justice.

electricspacegirl | July 31, 21:00 CET

Simon linked to it in this comment upthread.

Saje | July 31, 21:11 CET

Orion doesn't sound all that appealing to me. Thought I must say Slingers looks sort of interesting.

The thing about Firefly isn't that the concept was great. It was, but the thing that made it so good was the Whedonesque characters. In 14 (if memory serves) episodes, this show created characters that an entire fanbase *knows*. Something even Buffy never accomplished, if you ask me. The characters were vivid and wonderfully rich. The stories were entertaining. The dialogue was genius. I, too, don't trust SyFy to make a show that accomplishes all that - aside from BSG and Caprica, I mean.

But we'll see what happens. Maybe whoever is working on it will turn out to be the next Joss. It has to happen at some point, I guess.

Mitholas | July 31, 22:22 CET

I will never understand the television industry...

If you're going to make a show like Firefly, why not just fund and re-launch Firefly?? Or even something new in the Firefly 'verse?

cheesefan | July 31, 23:06 CET

Euww... National Treasure... Do.Not.Want...

Djungelurban | August 01, 00:02 CET

Meanwhile, Amber Benson on Twitter is none too pleased with the apparent ripoff of DRONES for Human Relations, going so far as to point out that SCI FI Wire once blogged about DRONES, including the trailer.

The One True b!X | August 01, 00:57 CET