Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

Outcasts (TV)

8/9/10 - Blastr.com reported Outcasts is about a group of survivors some time in the future establishing a new home on the planet Carpathia. It's sort of like a western, in the new frontier.  "It's been like sort of Star Trek and warp factor, although we don't mention warp factor at all," series creator Ben Richards said. "We have to cheat a few things. They're always nanoteching stuff. Basically they had to build their own community on what they landed with. The transporter in which they landed is very high-tech and very modern, and they can do all kinds of stuff. People live in very rudimentary ways. That's that western feel. It's a frontier town kind of thing."  A rescue ship comes to join them, and all the old disagreements and fighting from back on Earth starts to happen again. Jamie Bamber's in Outcasts. "Although Battlestar Galactica does this as well, I think it's much more firmly rooted in sort of human emotional and political stories," Richards said. "So I would say it's a couple of notches down the level of sci-fi from Battlestar Galactica."  The primitive planet setting keeps Richards from worrying too much about BSG comparisons. "Apart from being fairly honored to be compared to Battlestar Galactica, it certainly wouldn't be a kind of problem for me in that respect," he said. "I think the big difference is probably the actual level of sci-fi involved. We're not at any point on board transporters jumping through space. We don't have the kind of aerial battles that you see in early episodes of Battlestar."  Outcasts is currently shooting in South Africa. BBC America will air it in December.

5/17/10 - BBC America announced Jamie Bamber has been cast in the new BBC America series Outcasts, a sci-fi series about survivors from a destroyed Earth and their drive for power, politics and sex as they settle in on a new planet. The sci-fi soap was created by Ben Richards and is being co-produced by BBC America, BBC and Kudos Film & Television.  The series is in production in South Africa and stars Bamber, Eric Mabius, Liam Cunningham, Hermione Norris, Daniel Mays, Amy Mason and Jeanne Kietzmann.  Outcasts is set in 2040 on a recently-discovered planet and tells of the dilemmas, loves and lives of a group of people setting up a new world. This life-sustaining planet is now home to the surviving population from Earth. Here there is a chance to start again, to bring the lessons learnt from Earth and to put them into action on a new planet.

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