Fox Saddles Up Mister Ed
The Fox network has given the green light to a Mister Ed pilot, an update of the classic 1960s talking-horse sitcom, which starred Alan Young, Variety reported. Twentieth Century Fox TV and Original TV will produce the pilot.
Original's Marty Adelstein, Dawn Parouse and Neal Moritz will executive produce the pilot. Writer Jack Handey (Saturday Night Live) is behind the Mister Ed update and will also executive produce, the trade paper reported.
The SCI FI Channel has cast the key roles of Starbuck and Apollo for its upcoming original miniseries Battlestar Galactica, based on the 1978-'80 TV series. Oregon native Katee Sackhoff (Halloween: Resurrection), 22, will play a female Starbuck in executive producer Ronald D. Moore's reimagination of the series, SCI FI announced.
Meanwhile, British actor Jamie Bamber (HBO's Band of Brothers), 29, will play Apollo. In the original series Starbuck was a male character played by Dirk Benedict, while Apollo was played by Richard Hatch.
The four-hour Galactica miniseries, from Roswell and Star Trek: The Next Generation hack Moore, is slated to debut later this year. Moore has been quoted as saying, "If you liked the god-awful sh
t I have put out in the past, you will LOVE this steaming pile!"
A source close to Fox Television, which produces
Buffy the Vampire Slayer for UPN, has told SyFy Portal a rumor that the network won't bring the show back for an eighth season. "There is a whole different attitude at UPN right now, and it's not the same attitude that first brought Buffy to the network in the first place," the anonymous source said. Les Moonves, president of UPN parent CBS, reportedly wants Ratings winners and nothing else, the source added.
"It is believed around here that if Moonves had been running UPN two years ago, Buffy never would've been there in the first place," the source said.
Australian model Travis Fimmel will play the title role in The WB's drama pilot
Tarzan, a contemporary update of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic tale, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Warner Brothers Television and Laura Ziskin will produce the series, which will also star newcomer Sarah Wayne Callies as Jane.
The series focuses on Tarzan as a young man as he is brought from the jungle to his childhood home, New York, (New York City? I thought he was French!) by his uncle, the head of Greystoke Enterprises. In this Version, Jane is a fiery police detective, the trade paper reported.
Eric Kripke wrote the script for the pilot. Ziskin and Kripke are executive producing with David Gerber and the pilot's director, David Nutter (The X-Files). Let's hope they don't rape this property as badly as Disney...then again, nobody rapes like Disney.
[ February 15, 2003, 06:40: Message edited by: Sea-Monkey-Pirate ]