an age-old demon reprogrammed to fight the forces of evil.

sounds more like Hellboy than Buffy.

eddy | September 17, 14:51 CET

With a few minor changes (swap reprogrammed for depowered and directionless) you get the basic setup for an Illyria series as well.

I still cannot work out why Sci Fi haven't beaten down Joss' door to either create them a slayerverse show or a whole new concept. I would imagine if Firefly wasn't tied to Fox they may well have taken that on as well. They already know from taking in Stargate how it benefits to get a show with a guaranteed, dedicated audience.

Maybe next year things will be different and the Spike/Faith/Illyria series will debut on Sci Fi. We can dream.

Koven | September 17, 15:46 CET

Well, they have some talented actors for the cast. The name of writer/director Bill Platt didn't ring a bell. Did a web search on him and came up with nothing. Is he new?

Yes, several shows have been compared Buffy. And while some are good, they fell well short of Buffy. It's going to take awhile before these other producers realize that Joss and his writing staff created the heart and soul of Buffy.

Madhatter | September 17, 15:54 CET

I wish these new shows would be judged on their own merits first, instead of automatically comparing them to previous shows.

I mean, it's SciFi channel, so we can sorta guess how good it will be, but still.

PMMJ | September 17, 17:05 CET

lol, that seems a bit of self-contradictory post PMMJ, you say these shows should be judged on their own merits and then imply that because it's on SciFi we can judge how good it's going to be :)

Paul_Rocks | September 17, 17:16 CET

Nah.... Buffy is unique :p

Angel TheVampire | September 17, 20:45 CET

Not that I wish to put words in PMMJ's mouth, but I think his intent was that the SciFi CHANNEL has a batting average which is ..well, below average. He didn't mean to diss the genre of SciFi in general. So he's judging the channel on its own merits, and then the shows on their own merits.

ZachsMind | September 17, 21:26 CET

Well I know the Sci Fi Channel has reportedly gone down hill of late but I have to say I loved what they did with the remake of Battlestar Galactica. Though Stargate Atlantis still has to find its own feet.

Simon | September 17, 21:39 CET

I saw the previews for Darklight and it looks awesome to me. I'm definately going to watch it and if it sucks then I'll just keep waiting for the next great genre/scifi/fantasy show on tv. If we could just get one good sci fi show on the major networks then we start might seeing more and more of our favorite type of shows. That's one of the only reasons why I'm watching SciFi right now is becuase that all the other channels have crap on. Aside from SciFi,FX,History, and the USA network all the other stations pretty much suck.

SpikeBad | September 17, 23:28 CET

The battlestar galactica series starts in January on Sci-fi so not everything on the channel is crap. I like both Stargates, most of the crap on Sci-fi is their original movies. All the effects look cheesy and fake and the actors are never really good. It seems to me that Sci-fi channel has more luck with their series and they should focus on those. (EX. FARSCAPE, STARGATE, STARGATE ATLANTIS, AND WASN'T SLIDERS ON SCI-FI?) So if Sci-fi ever did want to do a Joss show I'm pretty sure it would stay around for a while, because Angel's ratings were a full 50 percent better than Stargates in the neilsons ratings. I think I'm gonna e-mail Sci-fi right now...

ShotgunWes | September 18, 01:27 CET

I'm looking forward to Commando Nanny...... Hello? Hello?


I'll get me coat....

zz9 | September 18, 01:34 CET

Sci-Fi seems to believe highly in quantity over quality. While a channel like FX would take the time and spend the money to put out a decent movie sci-fi will take that same time and money and try to make four. I have no idea why this is. But I have to believe its intentional. Sci-Fi has some decent shows. Stargate which they got from Showtime, and the spinoff seems ok. And the Battlestar Glactica remake is atleast 10x better than the original. So they can acquire/make decent shows when they want to. So why then do they spend money on crap like Andromeda and Boa vs. Python (and cancel Farscape)? Its like the Schizophrenia channel. One half seems to want to put out decent programming and the other wants to go the Manos the Hands of Fate route. Which incidently is probably why they cancelled MST3K, a show run on a miniscule budget. Eventually they would have started in Sci-Fi's own movies...

sTalking_Goat | September 18, 01:47 CET

Darklight has an interesting cast and the kind of pitch that sounds good in theory but is usually embarrassing in execution on TV. Richard Burgi's always fun and intimidating doing his gruff macho thing, with his sad eyes (nice little Firefly connection there. He was the dirty Alliance cop--or ex-cop, can't remember--Womack in "The Message"...and I'm pretty sure I remember seeing him in other Fox shows. He was a pretty big part of 24's first season). I'm sure John De Lancie will do his usual John De Lancie thing and come off all "Q" no matter how hard he tries not to. He usually still impresses anyway, guy's got charisma to spare. Love David Hewlett, he was awesome in Cube and Treed Murray.

Shiri Appleby is the weak link. She was the worst of the main cast on Roswell. She had the odd good scene or even episode, but it was pretty much three seasons of her robotic acting and mostly chemistry-free thing with Jason Behr.

On the IMDB it lists Darklight as being rated R. They must've got that wrong, right? TV doesn't have a ratings system that includes "R", does it? I wonder if it really will have mature content though. What time of the night is Sci-fi airing it?

I'll probably give this a chance if it's picked up by a Canadian station

[ edited by Kris on 2004-09-18 00:01 ]

Kris | September 18, 01:59 CET

I know, zz9. WB saw fit to cancel 'Angel' to make room for 'Commando Nanny'? That isn't even worthy of a bad joke. No wonder the WB is dead last in overall ratings. Withholding my judgement on Sci-Fi until the 'Farscape' mini-series begins next month.

Madhatter | September 18, 03:00 CET

Uh...this is a SciFi movie, not a new show.

Hollowman | September 18, 03:47 CET

i doubt it.

pezwitch | September 18, 05:03 CET

I watched it. Definitely NOT the new Buffy. First, because it takes itself too seriously. Where's the funny? Second, and perhaps even more important, the writing is flat. Third, young Miss L's superpowers are TOO super. Where's the suspense? And finally, where are her friends?

As a movie, it was mildly intriguing, just to see what they'd do with the concepts, but as a series, fugeddaboudit.

Maeve | September 20, 18:08 CET