io9: showtime

Showtime Goes Scifi With Dollhouse-Esque Slave-Bot Show

Meredith Woerner — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:30:00 PST

Showtime is deciding what synthetic creatures live — and which ones die — on their new drama Syns (formerly Doll's Hospital). Based on a British TV series, Syns is set in a world filled with "humanlike" synthetic organisms that are used for all sorts of purposes — from menial labor to sex. The show will be produced by Jericho's John McNamara and Supernatural's Sera Gamble. [The Hollywood Reporter]

How Knuckledraggers Really Spend Their Time Off

Lauren Davis — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:00:00 PDT

Starship Regulars, a cartoon that ran on Flash animation site Icebox from 1999-2000, was intended to parody self-righteous military space dramas like Star Trek: The Next Generation and Babylon 5. But the interstellar upstairs/downstairs comedy in many ways resembles the rebooted Battlestar Galactica with its focus on the orange jumpsuit-wearing non-officers, heavy use of a fictitious swear word, and frequently intoxicated crew. In the pilot episode "War," a Diedrich Bader-voiced crewman engages in a drinking contest with an alien technician while Michael Dorn occupies the captain’s chair and faces down a more classic extraterrestrial foe.

Showtime bought the rights to Starship Regulars in 2000 with an eye toward developing a live-action series, which, sadly, never came to fruition. The entire 10-episode run is still available on Icebox.

Starship Regulars [Icebox]

Insects, Nazis, and the Gulf War in New Showtime Series

Graeme McMillan — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:30:00 PDT

Showtime is bringing in The Exterminators, courtesy of a just-announced adaptation of DC Comics' horror series from the Vertigo line. In a strange moment of the circuitous nature of media, Vertigo's The Exterminators actually started life as a pitch for a TV show by writer Simon Oliver before being turned into a 30-issue series about ex-con Henry James' experiences working for Bug-Bee-Gone, an exterminator company run by his stepfather. It sounds dull until you learn about the possibly-mystical mysterious box with some connection to insects, Nazis and the Gulf War

There are also the unfortunate side-effects of Draxx, the experimental new chemical Henry has to use on a daily basis. All I'm saying is this: Anyone with a fear of cockroaches should probably stay away.

Showtime apparently plans for the show to downplay the more unrealistic plots from the comic, describing the new show as:

"Six Feet Under" in the world of pest control... "Exterminators" will revolve around the Bug-Be-Gone crew, an extended dysfunctional family of exterminators whose greatest enemies aren't the insects and rodents they meet and kill on a daily basis but rather their own self doubts, vices and inner demons.

Ironically, the news is announced in the same month as the final issue of the comic is released, having been cancelled due to low sales. If only Showtime had announced this six months earlier...

Showtime buggy over 'Exterminators' [Hollywood Reporter]