You've worked on Lost, Alias, Heroes and now Day One. Have you been typecast as a science fiction and fantasy writer? Is there a great Grey's Anatomy script inside of you, waiting for the chance to come out?

I actually quite love my genre, the science fiction genre, and fantasy, and action adventure, really. It's what I grew up on. Growing up as a kid in the 1970s, I grew up on Star Wars and Ray Harryhausen and the Atari 2600 and Apple 2 and D&D and Doctor Who betamax bootlegs from England and all that stuff is really what I love. What drives me to be creative is coming up with new worlds and fun characters and extraordinary events and all that wonderful, fun stuff that so inspired me as a kid.

I think that I've been very lucky, incredibly lucky, to be able to work in the film and entertainment business doing what I love. Before I got into television, I did a little bit of writing in video games, which was very fun, and then I wrote feature screenplays for a number of years - None of which got produced, but they were all assignments and spec sales to Hollywood studios. My niche really was writing these big science-fiction adventure films, and videogames come to life. One of the first things that I sold was a modern-day Jason and the Argonauts, I sold that to Dreamworks, and I wrote a new take on Flash Gordon for Sony back in the day. I adapted the Berzerker novels for Alex Proyas as New Line, and made my bread and butter in the genre that I loved, and I've been lucky to continue to be able to do that.

So do you harbor secret wishes of going back and making that Flash Gordon movie? Do you want to go and work on a Star Wars project, now that you've made your name? Day One is your own creation, are you happier working on something that you've created, or do you want to make your mark on these worlds that meant so much to you?

I love creating my own worlds, it's something I'm very into. I think that now, with so many different platforms available to me as a storyteller, that I can really build out my own story. Day One is going to have many forms, it's going to have the version that is in prime time on NBC and then I'm going to be able to expand it into different arenas like comic books, novelizations and some really cool web stuff that we're going to be doing as well. So I love doing my own thing, creating my own intellectual properties and being able to build out my own little worlds.

So much of it for me is really about escaping to those worlds and being able to immerse myself in them, and explore more adventurous places and experiences that I'm not able to have in my daily life. I'm certainly open to working on other narratives and fictions, but there's something so special about creating something from scratch and then expanding it.

You're talking about what you've called on your blog "Transmedia Storytelling"; that there's going to be Day One the television show, but that there's also going to be Day One the web presence, and comic books as well... Is that how you see storytelling in general now? Multiple platforms for one story?

I certainly do see storytelling as going across multiple platforms now, but that really has a lot to do with how I grew up as a kid. As I always say, everything I learned about everything comes from Star Wars. For me, those movies were so impactful on me, such a consuming reaction. But it was also playing with the action figures, reading the comics, reading the books, playing the games, making Star Wars movies of my own... All that stuff just imprinted itself in my head. So when I think about the worlds that I create, I just automatically imagine the expanded universe component and get excited about using the different platforms to tell the story in new ways.

I'm very lucky that transmedia storytelling, crossplatform narrative, is so important right now in the entertainment business, in all facets of it, whether it's a video game or a movie or a TV show, it's important to be able to extend your story across platforms to be able to reach the fractured audiences that are experiencing the stories in so many different places and in so many different ways. I'm lucky to be able to think about that stuff naturally.

That's touching on something I wanted to ask. You have NBC behind you on this?

Absolutely, NBC were such amazing and supportive partners in Heroes expanding their brand across the web and into different arenas, and I really made some great friends in our dotcom and licensing divisions who understood what I wanted to do and were really excited in having a show creator reach out to them and treat them like collaborators and partners. So I've been very lucky in having support from NBC.

I want to make sure that people understand that it's not about 'exploiting the brand,' it really is for me about having more toys to play with. I very much designed Day One, and that world, so that it would organically and authentically exist on those other platforms without being exploitative and ancillary. That every piece of the Day One brand that exists on whatever platform is incredibly valuable and canon for the mythology and important and valuable to the people who are looking at it.

So how established is the Day One mythology at this point? Do you have a clear idea of where everything is going, or at least a firm enough idea of the backstory so that other people can elaborate on it without contradicting what you want to do on the show?

Absolutely. Look, because I'm a psychopath and really into stories and a total D&D nut, I can't help but think about where everything is going and where everything came from, and who people are and why they're doing the things that they are. It comes very naturally to me to think about a massive arc for what's essentially a space opera. Again, it comes back to Star Wars: That's what George Lucas did! He sat down, and thought about it, and certainly Tolkein did as well. That's very much the school that I come from.

For Day One, I very much have a long term plan that's broken into, for the series, these different events. NBC, and rightly so, is very committed to making sure that, when Day One is on the air that it's very special, and doesn't overstay its welcome, and that every episode is important.

We're going to try some interesting things about a limited run. We're going to be on for twelve weeks in a row, starting in March. We're really trying to have the first season feel like a solid event that has a real sense of closure, and if it's successful, there are ways to continue the story. As I've been building Day One, I kind of think of it like I'm creating a D&D campaign, just to keep referencing D&D [laughs]. I feel like I'm designing a campaign, a ruleset, a world, and modules, and then my writing staff, or my partners in the publishing space or online are really the players. It's up to me to build space where they can be creative, and create stories that are fun for them to create and for other people to experience, and be integrated as canon into the Day One mythology.

How do you feel about the awareness of Day One? When it was first announced, a lot of people thought it was going to be something like Jericho, but here, you're talking about it being a space opera...

I can only hope that people will be surprised and excited about Day One. It's natural for people to compare it to other franchises or movies or stories, I certainly don't blame anybody for reading NBC's press release or looking at some images and comparing it with something that they're more familiar with. I'm totally okay with that, and I certainly do that all the time when imagining what Avatar's going to be like or some other movie that I'm really excited about. But I'm hoping that I'm being creative enough, and have hired amazing writers and collaborators to help me, to build out stories and a world that absolutely have familiar elements that people will see the influences, but they're going to be so fast and furious and thick that I think we're going to come up with something that's ultimately original. That's certainly my goal.

Do you have a finite ending in mind for the series? Are you heading towards a particular endpoint, or are you preparing to be Gene Roddenberry and have Day One still going in thirty years?

I certainly have a plan for the stories. Again, I am a product of sci-fi, fantasy and everything I grew up with in the seventies. I absolutely have a finite version of one of the Day One stories, but there are also ways that those stories can continue on television and in other places, as well. I don't necessarily need to be the guy in charge completely, it's important for a creator to have a firm hand on the tiller of their story, to believe in it and love it, but also be willing to bring on people who can collaborate in making those stories the best that they can possibly be. Certainly, Roddeberry was at the helm of Trek, but he certainly wasn't at the helm of The Next Generation, which was so great, or Wrath of Khan, or JJ's Trek. He established the culture and spirit with which Star Trek stories are told.

Lucas and Star Wars is another interesting example. He created an amazing universe and some fantastic movies, and there were periods in the development of the expanded universe where some amazing collaborators came in and were allowed to expand on it. I think some of the novels are such an amazing extentions of the Star Wars universe, as were some of the games. I think Knights of The Old Republic was such a great Star Wars adventure, and I can't wait to see what BioWare and Lucasarts come up with for the new MMO. And, you know, there were some good things about the prequels and there were some things that weren't so good. I'd love to see KOTOR the movie. Or Neill Blomkamp's adaptation of Republic Commando.

It's important, as an entertainer, a commercial artist really, to understand the value of having other voices in your process, to help make the work better and give it a longer shelf life.

If you had your chance to be part of the writing staff of any SF television show of the past, what would it be?

Well, I did just write about Space: Above and Beyond, and certainly Battlestar did some amazing things. Growing up with Star Wars was huge for me so being able to work on the new TV show that Lucas is doing would be really interesting as well. I'm completely obsessed with the Russel T. Davies and David Tenant years of Dr. Who. That would've been something magnificent to be part of. I can't wait to see how Steven Moffat tops Blink! But, really, At the end of the day, anything with spaceships in it is something that I would be all over. I just love spaceships. I hate to geek out like that, but that's what makes me more of sci-fi guy than a syfy guy. Know what I'm saying? it was so awesome to have Star Trek come out this summer and go and see a movie with space battles. It'd have to be something with some tech and some hardware. And you can bet your ass that, somewhere down the line, Day One will have it's fair share of that as well.

If you can't remember what all these new shows are — which is a bad sign for some of them, to begin with — then check out our handy guide to the new TV season, for all the details.

It's not just the comic continuations of canceled shows (which also include The X-Files, Angel and, soon, Pushing Daisies), though; old ideas are never allowed to die anymore anywhere; that's why we're reading news about Battlestar Galactica being relaunched as a movie by Bryan Singer, X-Files possibly undergoing a movie reboot, eagerly anticipating the 28-years-later sequel to Tron and worrying whether or not there's going to be a fifth Terminator movie.

Arguments could - and will - be made about how this shows the void of new ideas in the entertainment world, but I'm not sure that those really hold water; this year alone, we've seen District 9 and Moon find success, gotten curious about Chris Nolan's Inception and watched as James Cameron's Avatar has become the most anticipated movie of the year. New stories are out there, and from big studios normally condemned for only sticking with familiar franchises, as well (In television, the same arguments can be made; for all the familiarity of Fringe or Warehouse 13, they're new shows, as are/were Dollhouse, Day One and even Flash Forward. As far as comics go, you only have to leaf through the 400+ page Previews to see all manner of new ideas sharing space with familiar faces). So, if it's not that no-one's coming up with new stories, why do we keep going back to the old?

It can't just be nostalgia; you can't really tell me that Jericho's return as a comic book and potential TV movie comes down to people longing for those halcyon days of 2008, for one thing, and it's not just the sense of unfinished stories or unfulfilled potential (Unless I missed the legions of people crying out for someone to come along and give us the story of bearded Lorne Greene Adama in Galactica 1980 that they knew we deserved for all these years). So, what is it?
I'm worried that, ultimately, it's laziness. Not only laziness on the side of creators, but also on the side of fans; for the creators, resurrecting an old franchise seems like a no-brainer because it:
* offers a way around that whole pesky "coming up with an idea" thing,
* brings a ready-made amount of fans, no matter how small, who are not only already interested in your product but can take up some slack on marketing and publicity (Yes, this involves "I can't believe they're letting Bryan Singer do BSG only months after Ron Moore's show ended" style outrage),
* creates an easy PR hook for whatever publicity you want to do ("[Character X] is back!")
* allows you to learn from the mistakes and successes of your predecessors instead of making yourself look like idiots in public (Until, of course, you learn new ways to do that, which is inevitable), and
* gives you a chance to work out some of your "I could do that idea a million times better!" feelings about original version.

On the fan side of things, though, it gets more complicated. We cling onto these resuscitations because, in a weird way, we feel entitled to them: We've invested all this time and energy in them, and - for want of a better way to put it - that gives us the right to demand more of it until we decide we're done (See: Star Trek and Star Wars and the fact that they'll never go away), and also because... well, we've invested all this time and energy and we want to know that it's not for nothing, and that we won't have to go through it all again with something else that might just break our heart.

In the end, it's as much a success for the market as it is anything else: Everything is available to us if we want it badly enough (Well, as long as what we want already exists; those new things, they still have to be dreamt up), even if it's not what we really need, or what is good for us. Don't get me wrong; for the people who couldn't consider life without knowing what happened to Angel and Illyria after the end of the TV show, I'm happy that they get their chance to find out (And I selfishly look forward to the further adventures of Ned and Chuck, when they appear). I just wish that, sometimes, we were not only allowed to move on from our old favorites and find something else to surprise and amaze us.

Talking about the failure of Kings on the network, president of prime time entertainment Bromstad told the audience,

I think that it was an amazingly big swing and a great production, and Michael Green is a phenomenal writer... I think our challenge now-and hopefully what you see with the new shows is in a really crowded marketplace-you have to sell something. People want to know what something's about. That was a very complex idea. It was a show that was originally developed when I was there before [with] Laura Lancaster. We thought it was too highbrow and sophisticated to sell in a 30-second spot. It doesn't mean we're not looking for big ideas, but they have to be big ideas an audience can grab onto and relate to.

Maybe it's just me, but there seem to be a lot of things that seem wrong with that quote (Kings was "too highbrow and sophisticated" to sell in 30 seconds? Really? Don't get me wrong, I think that it was a wonderful show, intelligent and, yes, sophisticated, but at the same time, it could easily have been sold on the family drama aspects, the religious/spiritual aspects or even the wartime political aspects - the fact is that NBC didn't do any of these; saying that it was too hard without even trying sounds like false justification after the fact), but the most worrying is the message it seems to send that NBC has given up on programming that doesn't appeal to the lowest common denominator, and that because of that, SF is in trouble on the network.

Looking at the shows on offer from that network, there's some evidence to support that theory. Heroes and Chuck - as much as I like them both (And I genuinely do like Heroes, despite the snark) - are both firmly in the populist category, far from the sometimes obtuse Lost or willfully discordant Dollhouse, for one thing, and also tend to stay away from the occasional uncomfortable questions offered by the otherwise-cuddly Fringe; the danger is never too real (whether in terms of tension or scale), the status quo always within one reset. That shouldn't necessarily be a surprise; NBC drama in general is softer and more comforting than what you'd see on Fox, after all, and the network has already taken enough hits in terms of attempts at SF edginess - even if the results were Bionic Woman and My Own Worst Enemy, in addition to Kings - that you could see why they'd want to turn away from the idea.

(It's strange that a network that can produce - and support, despite weaker ratings than expected at launch - shows like 30Rock and The Office is so resistant to doing the same thing to non-comedy shows that are equally less-likely to stick to stereotypes and expectations.)

Additionally, NBC has given up the 10pm slot by stripping Jay Leno's new show across the week at that time, surrendering what used to be their time slot for high profile serious drama. It's the time slot that, ideally, Kings would've been in, a sign that the show had more to it than the obscure advertisements that NBC managed to produce for it after being confounded by how highbrow and sophisticated it ended up being, but it's hard to stifle the thought that perhaps the Sunday time slot it started with was a sign that the show was already being dumped as a result of confusion over what to do with it.
All of this makes me concerned for Day One, Jesse Alexander's new series launching next year. Closer in tone to Lost than Heroes, and asking more of the viewer than an episode of Law & Order, Day One is the kind of smart, engaging show that Kings was... and, worryingly, Bromstad is already making comments about a willingness to consider the show a mini-event, as opposed to an ongoing series. To be fair, she's made these comments before, and Alexander has already responded by pointing out that "[i]f the audience is there, we'll stay on the air," but it's bad buzz that the show doesn't need before it's made it to air.

That said, Day One has a lot of things going for it that Kings didn't: A defining opening event, for one, giving the show a "what if?" hook that can be summed up in one line, as opposed to Kings' alternate world scenario. The potential for more crowd-pleasing action scenes than Kings offered, for another. And - currently, at least - a better time slot and the backing of a network that should know better than to move new series two weeks into their run because they're worried that ratings are all. Day One has the potential to be a great series in the same way that Lost is, or Battlestar Galactica was; I just hope that it's allowed to fulfill it.

Lost:

Add another name to the pile of actors potentially returning to Lost. Heroes' Greg Grunberg got a call about returning as Oceanic flight 815 pilot Seth Norris, but has no idea what the producers have planned. [TV Guide]

Heroes:

Two promos feature Sylar and Claire (US only, unfortunately):

And the whole cast talked to E! about their roles in the coming season. Adrian Pasdar says of the relationship between Sylar-Nathan and Parkman:

The whole premise of Zachary [Quinto], myself and Greg [Grunberg] having an interesting triangle of behavior. In the process of Matt crushing Sylar and having my body become his, Sylar entered Matt, so there's a soul that's missing in me. It's my own Nathan behavior that's manifesting itself through Sylar. There's a triangle that makes itself clear by the third episode.

Greg Grunberg elaborates:

When I did the mind transfer, it didn't go clean. Some of him stayed in me and he needs me. He's looking for his body, he needs his body back and he'll do anything to do that, including kidnapping my son...He's kind of hanging around in my subconscious, making me do things that I don't want to do. I have to catch myself. I can't get rid of him, so I decide to ignore him. But you can't ignore Sylar for very long.

Pasdar also says that the other characters will learn the truth about Nathan and Sylar soon enough:

I think it's clear from the outset of season four that something is going on, least of all to Nathan. He doesn't become aware of it. I think he's a step behind the audience. There's just a split second for him in terms of understanding where he's going and what might be wrong. He catches up though.

And Hayden Panettiere delved a bit more into Claire's girl-on-girl interlude:

It's a very interesting relationship. She hasn't really had a relationship with someone that close-as a friend or anything else-since first season with her friend Zach. So it's a relationship I think that people are going to love and love to see us together. It's a very interesting dynamic between the two of them...She gets a friend, a confidant, somebody she can confide in and not be alone with her secret and just be herself, somebody to help her along and be her buddy and her pal.

And what about the Carnival? Panettiere explains:

Carnival is the opposite of what the Company was. The Company wanted to hide us and our abilities. They wanted to keep it under wraps. The Carnival is the opposite where they want people to know about it.

But Grunberg notes there will be plenty of ambiguity:

Just when you think it's safe, it's not. Just when you think it's evil, it turns out that we need them more than they need us

As for the dynamic duo of Hiro and Ando, James Kyson Lee describes their upcoming business venture:

Ando and Hiro are going to start up a new business venture. It's going to keep us busy. Sept. 21 you will see a huge billboard. I am for hire, romance for hire.

But all is not well in Ando and Hiro land, James continues, because Hiro's days are, for the time being, numbered:

Hiro has a bucket list because he's dying. Ando is trying to change that, but we'll see. There's a whole theme of 'Can you really mess with fate?' in our show. Sometimes you can change history, sometimes you can't.

[E! Online]

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan:

The box art for The Plan DVD has been released, along with the official synopsis:

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan: The Cylons began as humanity's robot servants. They rebelled, and evolved, and now they look like us. Their plan is simple: destroy the race that enslaved them. But when their devastating attack leaves human survivors, the Cylons have to improvise. Battlestar Galactica: The Plan tells the story of two powerful Cylon leaders, working separately, and their determination to finish the task.

[Galactica Siterep]

Cirque du Freak:

New promo stills show off the amazing vampire powers of John C. Reilly's hair:



[IGN]

The Book of Eli:

Crave online talks to the Hughes brothers about their post-apocalyptic universe, describing the consequences of a natural ecological disaster:

Allen Hughes: If it was a super volcano. They all, basically, the same thing would happen 30 years after. The atmosphere will look a certain way. There'd be a certain color to the sky. There'd be a certain kind of decomposition of the landscape so we could put that, coupled with what Albert's talking about.

Albert Hughes: Right now, what's in the teaser is not [everything]. When the normal trailer comes out, you'll see more of the world. There's no vegetation.

They talk about their survivors scavenging for supplies, and mention that Eli notes, "We kill people for what we used to throw away." But Allen Hughes notes the characters, not the post-apocalyptic setting, are central to the film:

It is about humans, whether it's Gary, Mila's character, they all are survivors. They are survivors. I think the bottom line is that's why the western comes up, because when you take advantage of more primitive times, true character starts to show through. When you put people in that element, you start to see the conflict is there a lot more. It's a hotbed for drama. Our piece is very dramatic. I mean, there's action or whatever but we start with character and that conflict. It's survival.

[Crave Online]

Fringe:

Executive producer J.H. Wyman teased the September 17 departure of Kirk Acevedo's character Charlie:

That is going to be a continuing storyline throughout the season. It should thrill. Nobody ever really disappears, and they could come back at any time. There is a parallel universe. Maybe [Charlie] will show up [there]. I think a lot of the answers you're looking for will be clear in [episodes] two and three and four. You'll really enjoy it.

When asked about the possibility of romance between Olivia and Peter, showrunner Jeff Pinker replied:

As long as the emotion is true, we're open to anything.

Which I take to mean, don't get your 'shipping hopes up any time soon. Oh, and Anna Torv just ate mushed up worms on set. [E! Online]

Pinker reiterated that there will be only one alternate universe, and said that most of the action will take place "over there." Leonard Nimoy has already filmed one episode for the second season as the alternate dimension-dwelling William Bell, and will be filming several more. Says Wyman:

He will appear on the show as much as he wants to.

[TV Guide]

Plus, new press release goodness:

Each episode of the sophomore season promises to uncover more about the larger threat and while some questions will be answered, new ones will surface. The intensity accelerates as Season Two opens with Olivia's shocking return to this reality, and a determined Peter, unknowingly in a race against time with an ominous mobile force, pursues information about Olivia's blurred and perplexing visit to the alternate reality. Meanwhile, Walter reenters the lab to cook up a bit of fringe science, and of course, some custard for someone's birthday.

[Spoiler TV]

True Blood:

Two clips have surfaced from what looks to be next week's episode. First, Eric tries to rescue Sookie from the Fellowship of the Sun lock-in:

Then the police question Sam after finding Daphne's body in his fridge:

The Lovely Bones:

New promo images for The Lovely Bones, mostly straight out of the trailer.

[IGN]

Chuck:

Yvonne Strahovski elaborated a bit on Sarah Walker's relationship with Chuck in the coming season:

At the end of season two, we saw him download that new intersect. Sarah Walker is going to be a little less than impressed by it because we all saw she was letting herself go more and falling into the relationship with Chuck and putting aside the work side of things. So it's a little disappointing for her.

And, on the season in general:

There's going to be love and romance, but a little bit of heartbreak, maybe some rejection, some guns and some action...We're going to discover how the mechanism works inside Chuck's head. We're going to see just how good it is.

[E! Online]

Here's a casting call for the season's second episode, "Chuck Versus the Three Words:"

[KURT STROMBERG] (30-45). A powerful, brick of a man. Eyes void of any feeling. He is a dangerous arms-dealer but he has a soft spot for the love of his life, Carina (Mini Anden). Whenever he gets around her, he becomes a lovable teddy bear.

[Spoiler TV]

Eureka:

It's goo and electrodes in images from the fifteenth episode "Shower the People:"



[Spoiler TV]

Day One:

Ain't It Cool News has gotten a hold of the pilot script for NBC's alien invasion drama, and shared a few details:

Massive meteorite-like projectiles come crashing into the Earth from all around the planet. The projectiles then melt, reform and shoot out of the ground, beanstalk-like, to form bizarre towers twice the length of the tallest man-made skyscraper. A circuit-frying electro-magnetic pulse knocks out all electronics and communications, "War of the Worlds"-style.

The key to combating the aliens, strangely, may lie with the series' main characters, all of them unknowing residents of a small Van Nuys, Calif., apartment complex. One's a doctor (latter-day "Veronica Mars" vet Julie Gonzalo). Another's a war vet just back from Iraq (latter-day "ER" vet David Lyons). Two more are the world's best-looking computer geeks ("24" vet Carly Pope and "Harper's Island" vet Adam Campbell). A reclusive resident of the complex named Lynne (she's the bespectacled young woman seen at the end of the trailer below) appears to have been secretly manipulating her fellow tenants without their knowledge in anticipation of the threat. Some key dialogue:

TENANT: So you knew this was coming?

LYNNE: It's all happened before.

Later we see Lynne talking to a non-tenant named Hugh, another fellow who seems to know too much. He tells Lynne she needs to cut and run.

HUGH: Your people haven't been trained, Lynne. You won't get them working together in time. (beat) We'll try again. Somewhere else. But not here. It's too late.

Some time ago we asked Alexander if Lynne would be revealed to be a time-traveler in episode two; he replied emphatically in the negative. (We also asked if, while Alexander was working on "Lost's" first season, he knew that Hurley would be spending a good chunk of season five in 1977. His response: "Fuck no!" So somebody should someday ask Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse the same question!)

[AICN]

Defying Gravity:

Our astronauts boldly venture into a strip club in Sunday's episode "Threshold:"

And Spoiler TV has three more non-embeddable clips from the same episode.

Sanctuary:

The season two trailer is out, revealing a few details about the second season. It looks like the Sanctuary is getting a new beautiful badass (perhaps to replace the AWOL Ashley?), Will's struck up a relationship with invisible woman Clara Griffin, and vampiric Nikola Tesla is still hanging around.

Zack Adamski's Sargasso Planet fansite looks, at first glance, like the kind of thing the internet is full of, except for a show that no-one but Zack remembers, but then you realize that the weird introduction includes a very particular link:

If you are a SARGASSO PLANET fan or merely curious — friend me on FACEBOOK, follow me on TWITTER, checkout my FLICKR feed, etc. Like I said this is only DAY ONE and you never know what kind of random blah-blah-blather I might post.

Adamski is, as a Google search will tell you, one of the characters from Jesse Alexander's new NBC show Day One, and the Flickr link includes an image of Liberty Park signage... that being the apartment complex that houses all of the leads for the show. Which makes us wonder what other Easter Eggs are available on the site: are the Sargasso Planet prototype toys early glimpses of Day One's aliens? Is the countdown clock on the front of the site to the show's launch, or something else entirely? And, really, what the hell is going on in this postcard?

Day One launches on NBC next year. Zack's site is available now to be picked apart and studied.

[Sargasso Planet]

Yesterday, we posted a leaked trailer for Day One, which starts airing in March on NBC. Grillo-Marxuach is joining the show as a co-executive producer, and he says that trailer is a "great teaser for what's happening in the show." It's actually the trailer that series creator Jesse Alexander made, to convince the network to pick the show up. Grillo-Marxuach says even though he's sad The Middleman was canceled, he's excited to move on with his career and get to work with another group of talented people and learn from them.

One of the things we loved about The Middleman was its light-heartedness and the way it reveled in its fantastical stories. So we were wondering if Day One was going to be darker than The Middleman. Grillo-Marxuach replies, "Touched By An Angel would be darker than The Middleman." At the same time, though, he says that some of The Middleman's optimism will show up in Day One, and Alexander and his son are both huge fans of The Middleman.

You can see that optimism in the trailer, which showcases "the idea of a community coming together in the face of great adversity," says Grillo-Marxuach. For example, in that trailer, there's a moment where a police officer is holding a gun on a group of people on the freeway. And the other guy disarms the cop, but also reassures him that he's a good cop, and everything's going to be okay. It ends on a hopeful note of working together, says Grillo-Marxuach. And Alexander has been influenced by our new spread of global communication, and seeing how the internet has brought new communities together. So if you're expecting Day One to be The Road: The Series, you might be surprised.

The Middleman comes out on DVD July 28. We'll have the rest of our interview with Grillo-Marxuach about the DVDs coming up soon.

So are those two oddly calm people aliens, who were once attacked by the giant under-the-table aliens before? I'm intrigued. We'll see what happens next on NBC. Here's the official synopsis, still keeping us pretty much in the dark:

Day One chronicles a global catastrophe from the perspective of the residents of a southern California apartment complex. In the wake of a mysterious event that has shattered lines of communication and (literally) changed the shape of the world, the survivors must work together to both rebuild and save the Earth from a menace that might have already consumed countless other worlds...

[Via Quiet Earth]

During an interview with John Siuntres on the WordBalloon podcast, Heroes and Lost alum Alexander explained the set-up and tone of the new NBC series:

Day One follows a group of people who live in a small apartment building... They're all strangers, they're all living their own lives, and then this earth-shattering event takes place that really changes the way the whole world has to move forward, and we follow this group of people as they become a community, a community of strangers, very much in the same way that the plane crash in Lost brought that group of people together... and they're all quite surprised to learn that they all have key roles to play in the upcoming new world order they are facing...I'm being a little cagey there, kind of hiding the big reveal, but, you know... It's a big event series, and the kind of story you see in a summer blockbuster... I love the idea of bringing a massive high production value entertaining story that people can get for free. I always loved that idea, that "Let's just make something so massive that people can get in their house for free and they're so compelled by it." That's what I'm trying to do with the show... The spirit of Day One really is entertainment, and optimism, and really cool characters working together to push through some challenges. I think the tone of the show is going to be fun and exciting and inspiring in a way that I really like in my genre entertainment. It's going to be interesting to see if that spirit works for people, and if it doesn't, it's my fault... because NBC has been so great and so supportive and encouraging for letting me do what I want to do on this thing.

With NBC's original description of the pilot playing up the post-apocalyptic aspects of the show, a lot of people wrote the series off as a Jericho clone, but Alexander feels that the actual show is something entirely different:

If people are looking to compare this show to other things, they're going to be building a very long list. The influences that are in Day One really come from so many different places [and] all the entertainment that had shaped me over the years, that I'm obsessed with. I'm such a fanboy nerd at the end of the day... There's a lot of Star Wars and Star Trek and all sorts of other elements. There's some Doctor Who elements, some Battlestar elements... You can see where I'm sort of trending with those references, they're different from any Jericho references.

Something else to look forward to when the show debuts in March next year is a format that balances story-arc with individual episodes, apparently:

That balance between episodic and serialized television is something that a lot of people are trying to figure out these days, and I've worked on crazy serials like Alias, and then on Lost, we kind of iterated on that a little bit by bringing in the flashbacks to try and give the folks something they could hang their hats on on a weekly basis potentially, and then on Heroes, we messed around with the format. And again, I'm really trying to figure out a way I can tell compelling stories every week. My taste in story is... I like a lot of story, I like a lot of stuff happening, you know? I like to keep it entertaining and compelling, and that's what I'm going to try and do with Day One... Sci-Fi really is the genre that I love, and I'm obsessed with trying to figure out a way to bring that genre to a mainstream TV audience. We're on NBC, we're on a broadcast network where the rubric for success is pretty high. We need to have a lot of people watching the show for it to stay on the air, and I've really been trying to figure out a way to do that. Hopefully, I've come up with something that will be fun to watch.

Day One premieres March 2010 on NBC.

Jesse Alexander On NBC's Day One & Sgt Fury [WordBalloon]

Show creator Jesse Alexander twittered the other day:

Just hired Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Erik Oleson, and Angela Kang as writers on DAY ONE! More announcements soon!

And Grillo-Marxuach just confirmed on his Facebook page that he's joining the show as co-executive producer.

Day One, from former Heroes producer Jesse Alexander, will be premiering in 2010 on NBC. Day One set photos by Deergus, more at the link.

Monday
Mondays stay their relatively lowkey selves with the new schedule and, if anything, become even more quiet for SFTV; Heroes and Chuck, both on reduced seasons, end up sharing the 8pm timeslot on NBC (Heroes' 19 episode fourth season goes first, with Chuck's 13 episode third season replacing it in the spring of 2010), with Heroes and Lost alum Jesse Alexander's new show Day One taking up the 9pm timeslot on NBC in 2010. Otherwise, it's a light night, although honorary io9 shows House on Fox and The Big Bang Theory on CBS keep on keeping on (Although BBT is being moved to 9:30pm).

Tuesday
Feel free to go outside or catch up on some cable shows on Tuesdays; Fringe has been moved away from its original timeslot, and until Fox premieres reincarnation crime procedural Past Life in its former 9pm slot midseason, there's almost nothing to see here (The exception being ABC's Better Off Ted, which will start its new 9:30pm slot as soon as Dancing With The Stars finishes). Move along.

Wednesday
Just like Tuesday, we're grasping at straws here until midseason, when new Fox drama Human Target will premiere at 9pm (It'll be replacing Glee, which I shamefully have to admit having loved the preview of last week. Don't judge me). Of possible interest: ABC's Eastwick, which adapts (and, more than likely, homogenizes) the John Updike novel/Jack Nicholson movie The Witches of Eastwick, may turn out to be more interesting than the "Desperate Housewives meets Bewitched" show I'm dreading. Not currently scheduled, but almost certainly on Wednesdays in spring 2010, the final season of Lost.

Thursday
Okay, this is the night to be thankful for TiVo, or else to make some hard choices as to what to watch and what to torrent Hulu later. ABC's new Flash Forward will air Thursdays at 8pm, which is the same timeslot as the CW's equally-new-but-probably-less-good Vampire Diaries and the not-SF-but-kinda fifth season of Bones on Fox (Also, not SF at all but still potentially worth watching at 8pm: NBC are doing more SNL Weekend Update Thursday). 9pm, you'll have to choose between Fringe in its new timeslot on Fox or Supernatural in its old timeslot on the CW; Annalee's head may explode, but this is one of those occasions where my love of multiverse stories makes a choice surprisingly easy (Sorry, Winchester Bros.).

Friday
With more networks pushing more "hit" shows to Friday, I can't quite tell if that means that the old "Friday is where shows go to die" school of thinking is over, or that networks are trying to kill off some shows quietly (Hi, Ugly Betty!). There're only a couple of shows in our target demographic here, though; Smallville takes up residence for its please-God-final season at 8pm on the CW, while Dollhouse starts all over again in its old timeslot, and we keep fingers crossed that (a) it has a stronger start to the season than last time, and (b) more people tune in live this time (Seriously, DVD sales and Hulu views aren't going to keep this thing alive for a third season, people).

Saturday/Sunday
Both nights are incredibly quiet, especially following this summer's burning of remaining episodes of shows we love (Don't forget, Pushing Daisies' final three episodes begin May 30th at 10pm on ABC, and Kings is back on Saturdays next month), but we're hopeful that that'll change as various shows begin to become so unpopular that they get dumped there. Call us cynical, but we'd rather just say realistic...

Still Unscheduled
We know that ABC's V remake is a go, but it's not been given a home yet; looking at the schedules that've been announced, there's theoretically space for it on Mondays following the end of Dancing With The Stars, but somehow I'm not sure that the network would really want to pair it with The Bachelor... Perhaps they're waiting to find out when Lost is returning, to make an Elizabeth Mitchell one-two punch, or perhaps details are still being worked out about exactly how the rebooted V will work (We've heard rumors of a six episode season, a thirteen episode season and a full season so far, after all). Wherever it ends up, I wouldn't expect to see it until midseason at this point.

The characters are all residents of the same apartment building in Van Nuys, California. After the big boom, the neighbors have to band together to uncover what happened to their world.

Reports are coming in that NBC will not be announcing their full fall schedule next week as originally planned, due to the tragic death of the network's VP of drama programming, Nora O'Brien on Wednesday afternoon. As a result, screenings of pilots and decisions about shows have been postponed as a mark of respect, meaning that the network is unlikely to have finalized their fall schedule by Monday's previously-announced announcement date. Apparently, currently under consideration is a plan to release a partial fall schedule next week, with a full schedule to follow, although some feel that a busy weekend will result in the full schedule coming out on time after all.

All we care about, really, is whether or not Chuck is coming back - Rumors seem positive on that score - and Jesse Alexander's new series Day One gets picked up. Here's hoping that we'll know the answer to at least one of those questions in a couple of days.

SGU: Stargate Universe
The Pros: It's on the same channel as Galactica and, in Robert Carlysle, has an actor who could stand up to Edward James Olmos in an act-off without embarrassing himself by doing so. Also, the set-up may be reminiscent of Star Trek: Voyager, but that doesn't make it a bad one... and, as Galactica has shown, stories about people trying to find their way home can be much more complicated than they may initially sound.
The Cons: It's a Stargate show, and that has historically meant more camp than many feel comfortable with, as well as shying away from deep characterization. But that said, this is being sold as the gritty Stargate, so who knows whether they can pull it off? If nothing else, the trailer last week looked good.

Day One
The Pros: Written by Lost and Heroes alumnus Jesse Alexander, this post-apocalyptic (well, kind of) series offers a dose of ensemble sci-fi drama that some have called "Lost meets Cloverfield," but without losing sight of characterization (and refreshingly free of Heroes' awkward sentimentality). Also, mysterious mythologies and alien invasions? It's got them and then some.
The Cons: It's not been officially picked up by NBC for a series yet - although it's surely only a matter of time - and rumors are that the network are considering it for a limited run if they do. Keep your fingers crossed, because the pilot script is amazing.

Virtuality
The Pros: Galactica showrunner Ron Moore's new show for Fox may be "as dark in its own way as Battlestar Galactica", centering on the crew of a long-haul space mission who spend their time in and out of virtual reality that doesn't help with their own neuroses.
The Cons: The show may be dead already; Fox are reportedly already considering reworking the show to make it more "mainstream", and Moore's recent post-BSG interviews haven't seemed incredibly optimistic on the subject.

Caprica
The Pros: It's the prequel spin-off from Battlestar Galactica, created by almost everyone who worked on Battlestar Galactica behind the scenes, with Ron Moore as showrunner until Buffy, Galactica and Dollhouse vet Jane Espenson takes over.
The Cons: It's a prequel, which may rob the show of some tension for some fans. Also, the Sci-Fi Channel and producers Moore and David Eick have talked up the importance of it being a drama more than a science fiction show, which sounds ominously like the shadow of "respectability" may loom over the series, drawing out the more pretentious aspects of Galactica. People who have seen the pilot, however, love it, so we're cautiously optimistic.

Kings
The Pros: Mixing spirituality, destiny, politics, family drama and ambition, NBC's recently-launched new series from Heroes' Michael Green (who also co-wrote the script for the upcoming Green Lantern movie from Warners) is pretty much Galactica minus the cylons. Morally ambiguous and well-acted, don't let the appallingly-bad NBC promos put you off; this is worth tuning in for.
The Cons: Ratings have been poor so far, and rumors have it that Green won't get the second season that he's already plotted out, which would be a shame. Maybe Sci-Fi could pick it up, if NBC drop it; it could easily fill the gap in their programming that Galactica has left behind.

The announcement of Graves' involvement shows not only the faith that NBC have in the show's success, but also almost guarantees a season pick-up for the show. As the Hollywood Reporter notes, Graves - whose resume includes episodes of Fringe, Journeyman and The West Wing as both director and producer - has gathered a bit of a reputation when it comes to directing pilots:

Last season, Graves directed and exec produced Fox's two-hour, $10 million pilot for "Fringe." The helmer is on a hot streak, with three consecutive pilots he directed — "Fringe," NBC's "Journeyman" and ABC's "The Nine" — going to series.

So how does Day One's creator feel about this choice? We asked him, and this is what he had to say:

Alex Graves is a brilliant filmmaker. An artist and a craftsman. Like me — he walked into a movie theater in May of 1977 and fell in love with making movies. I'm the luckiest guy ever to have Alex directing Day One.

We have to admit it; Fringe's director working on a script from Lost and Heroes's writer? We're kind of excited about this one.

Four pilots land directors [Hollywood Reporter]

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Alexander's pilot will focus on what happens after a "global event hat devastates the world's infrastructures," as a group of survivors not only try to rebuild society but also find out what happened in the first place. While the trade paper points out similarities to next fall's ABC show Flash Forward, the description makes us think that Alexander may have been reading Brian K. Vaughan's Y The Last Man or watching old episodes of Jericho, since leaving Heroes last year.

NBC orders 'Day One' pilot [Hollywood Reporter]