BABYLON 5 reboot still in development, streaming services showing interest

Confirming what was rumoured last year, the Babylon 5 reboot project is officially dead at the CW. The CW has focused its attention away from drama towards cheaper television fare. As also expected, Warner Brothers has not junked the project entirely but, after regaining the rights, is now shopping the project to streaming services, with at least two apparently showing interest. Original Babylon 5 creator, showrunner and head writer J. Michael Straczynski remains attached to the project.

Which streaming services are interested is as yet unknown. The most logical option, HBO Max (recently retitled just Max), is seemingly out of the question because they have their own budget and development issues in the wake of their recent Discovery merger (one of the few shows to survive the merger process, Our Flag Means Death, was cancelled last week). HBO proper do not seem interested, despite the presence of self-confessed Babylon 5 fan George R.R. Martin in the development process there.

Warner Brothers has excellent relations with Netflix, and is currently producing the Sandman live-action show for them. Sandman showrunner-producer Neil Gaiman is a good friend of Straczynski's, and wrote an episode for the original Babylon 5 way back in 1998. One of Babylon 5's myriad alien races, the Gaim, is named for him. Straczynski himself has a relationship with Netflix, having co-produced the first two seasons of Sense8 for them almost a decade ago. Netflix also lacks a high-profile, ongoing, live-action space opera at the moment.

Amazon are also a possibility, as they currently lack a space opera show after the cancellation of The Expanse a couple of years ago.

Other streamers seem to be well set-up for space opera: Disney+ has multiple Star Wars shows in development and recently added The Orville to its streaming lineup, whilst Paramount+ is veritably drowning in Star Trek content, not to mention Halo. Apple TV+ has For All Mankind and Foundation as ongoing space-based shows.

An intriguing possibility is Tubi, an ad-supported streaming service which began operation in 2014 and has over 74 million users in the United States. Tubi is predominantly available in the United States and Central America, but GDPR issues have seen it unable to launch in the UK and European Union. Tubi has been airing Babylon 5 itself for the past few months.

Tubi mostly airs content from other supplies, but has aired some original programming, including the animated comedy Freak Brothers, a cooking show, the second season of The Nevers (after it was dropped by HBO). Tubi has voiced an ambition to create more original content for its service, and Babylon 5 might be an attractive franchise, especially if Straczynski can work his magic like it's 1993 all over again to produce the show on a competitive budget.

More news as it comes in.

RUMOUR: BABYLON 5 reboot dead at CW, still in development with Warner Brothers

Rumours are swirling that the Babylon 5 reboot project may be getting a renewed lease of life.

As previously related, Warner Brothers put Babylon 5 into development with a whole new fresh lick of paint as a ground-up reboot, with original writer/creator/showrunner J. Michael Straczynski once again in charge. The CW picked up the project and spent two years developing a pilot script (an unusually long time) before the network was sold off to new owners, who promptly smoked almost its entire drama development schedule to focus on cheap reality programming. Although Babylon 5 2.0 wasn't quite dead, it had certainly been dealt a serious injury and did not look likely to survive.

However, Warner Brothers have taken the view that there's no reason to waste all that expensive development work and have been shopping the project to other venues. The most logical option, HBO Max, is seemingly out of the question because they have their own budget and development issues in the wake of the Discovery merger. HBO proper don't seem interested, despite the presence of self-confessed Babylon 5 uberfan George R.R. Martin in the development process over there.

That meant Warner Brothers having to team up with another streamer or network. WB have a good relationship with Netflix, where former Babylon 5 scriptwriter Neil Gaiman (he's also done some other work) is currently working on their adaptation of Sandman. It's also possible that Amazon might be looking for a space opera show to replace the recently-concluded The Expanse. Paramount+ have so much Star Trek on the go that it's improbable they'd want a competing space opera show, but they do also have Halo on the go, suggesting they might be interested if the script was good enough. However, having two space opera franchises in operation might instead just make that possibility even less likely.

Some rumours (cited here) have Apple TV+ circling the property. Apple TV+ also have two ongoing space opera franchises, with the original alt-history From All Mankind charting an alternate history of the 20th and 21st centuries where the Space Race between the USSR and USA never wound down in the 1970s but continued full tilt with missions to Mars. Meanwhile Foundation is a loose adaptation of the Isaac Asimov novel series of the same name. Apple TV+ has also enjoyed success with psychological SF thriller Severance and the partially SF-themed sitcom Mythic Quest (which featured an outstanding literary SF storyline in its second season featuring actors playing authors Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Ursula K. Le Guin).

However, Apple are possibly about to loose their biggest draw, with football comedy-drama Ted Lasso (itself a Warner Brothers co-production) set to conclude after three seasons. If Apple can't find a direct replacement, they might be looking to establish a broader portfolio of shows with broad appeal. Babylon 5 is often cited as being enormously ahead of its time, featuring serialised storytelling long before it was fashionable, cutting-edge vfx, epic space battles, rich political intrigue and complex characters, often acting in morally flexible ways.

There are all strong arguments, but it does not mean that Babylon 5 reboot will definitely go ahead, at Apple TV+ or elsewhere. It does suggest that the CW was not quite the last, best hope for the project, and there are other interests circling it.

The CW will not develop any pilots for 2023-24, likely ending BABYLON 5 reboot development

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the American channel CW has effectively abandoned the development of new, original drama programming. It will not pick up any new pilots for the 2023-24 season and may only renew three of its existing shows for next year (only one, All American, has been announced). For genre fans, this likely means the end of any chances for the Babylon 5 reboot project to move ahead at the channel.

The CW has spent many years as a relatively scrappy underdog, putting out a number of successful mid-budget shows like Supernatural and The 100 and a whole slate of DC Comics-adjacent shows like The Flash, Arrow, Superman & Lois and Legends of Tomorrow. These shows failed to turn a profit in first run, but did form a highly attractive package that was re-sold to streamers like Netflix for huge sums of money. Ill-advisedly, the CW terminated this deal to try to use its shows to push out its own streaming options as part of HBO Max. However, it was nowhere near as successful as the Netflix deal, putting the CW on the back foot. In early 2022, the CW was sold to Nexstar Media Group who immediately pivoted hard towards cheap reality programming and overseas imports. Ten CW scripted originals were cancelled immediately, with more following since.

The CW had previously picked up development rights to classic space opera series Babylon 5. The original series had run from 1993 to 1998, in first-run syndication and then on the TNT channel. 110 episodes were produced across five seasons, also generating six TV movies and a spin-off show, Crusade, that was cancelled after half a season. The show had not garnered a massive audience, but it had done solidly and turned an immense profit given its very low production costs (achieved through pioneering the use of CGI). The show had also picked up significant critical acclaim and multiple awards, as well as an enthusiastic cult audience. The show had pioneered serialised storytelling in dramas in an age of stand-alones and reset buttons, with writers including Damon Lindelof, the Wachowskis and George R.R. Martin citing it as an influential work. A partial HD remaster of Babylon 5 generated positive press coverage in early 2021 and introduced a new audience to the series.

Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski confirmed that a Babylon 5 reboot was in development at the CW in September 2021. Due to the changes at the CW, the show's development was unusually put on hiatus for a year after it was not picked up in the previous renewal window in February 2022. However, the latest news seems to make the reboot an even more unlikely project then it already was.

The project may not be entirely dead. The new CW is looking for more adult shows to appeal to older viewers, especially if they can be delivered for under $5 million per episode. A legacy show with name value aimed at adult viewers with a reasonable overseas resale potential might still interest the new regime, but it would now appear to be a slim shot indeed, and almost certainly not happening this year.

Additionally, it's possible another streamer or channel takes on the project, although it is unclear which ones would be interested.

J. Michael Straczynski calls on BABYLON 5 fans to help boost the show's reboot chances

Babylon 5 creator and showrunner J. Michael Straczynski has called on fans to join a social media franchise to boost the show's profile and help get a planned reboot of the show off the ground.

As reported previously, Straczynski is currently developing a Babylon 5 reboot project with Warner Brothers, potentially to air on the CW. A pilot script has been written and the CW took the highly unusual step of turning down the project for the 2022-23 season but keeping it in active development for the 2023-24 season. Apparently this delay was partially down to major seismic shifts both at the CW, which has been bought by the Nexstar Media Group, and Warner Brothers, which has been bought by and merged with Discovery.

Straczynski wants a show of support to show the interest in the show, using the hashtag #B5onCWin23 across social media platforms. The campaign began yesterday and appears to have been successful, briefly trending at #1 for the day and displacing even coverage of Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in London.

The effectiveness of the campaign remains to be seen, although companies do factor in social media presence and profile in making these decisions.

Babylon 5 is a science fiction, space opera franchise created by Straczynski. It originally ran for 5 seasons and 110 episodes airing between 1993 and 1998, along with 7 TV movies and a short-lived spin-off series, Crusade. The series which was mostly written by Straczynski (who penned 91 of the episodes) and won critical acclaim during its original run, including two Hugo Awards. The show was particularly noteworthy for its dedication to telling one continuous story across five seasons - common now but unheard of at the time - and its pioneering use of CGI for its visual effects, including some of the earliest TV uses of virtual sets and 100% CG creatures. The show was also recently given a HD makeover and re-release.

Since the conclusion of the original show, the cast has unfortunately suffered a high level of attrition, effectively blocking attempts to revive the show with a "next generation" approach. Straczynski has instead planned a reboot, telling a similar story in a similar universe but with substantial differences to the original.

BABYLON 5 reboot still in development amidst major changes at The CW

Mark Pedowitz, CEO of The CW, has confirmed that the channel's Babylon 5 reboot is currently still in development. This is despite The CW going up for sale and a whole slew of the channel's shows being cancelled.

Created by J. Michael Straczynski, Babylon 5 aired for a pilot, five seasons and four TV movies from 1993 to 1998, followed by a spin-off series, Crusade, that was cancelled after half a season in 1999. A subsequent additional TV movie aired in 2002, and another one was released direct to DVD in 2007. The show also incorporated spin-off novels and comic books. The show was noted for its pioneering use of both serialised storytelling and CGI. It had modest ratings during its original run but strong critical acclaim, winning back-to-back Hugo Awards in 1996 and 1997.

After the end of the original run, original creator-showrunner-writer J. Michael Straczynski (also noted for his work on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, The Real Ghostbusters, Jeremiah and Sense8, as well as his comics book work and the Clint Eastwood/Angelina Jolie film Changeling) spent some years developing a feature film featuring the original cast. However, a large number of the original cast has sadly passed away, making a Next Generation-style continuation of the show impossible.

Renewed interest in Babylon 5 was generated by a middling HD remaster which was released in early 2021 (which updated the live-action footage but not the CGI). Word of reboot of the show followed in September. Unusually, it was confirmed in February that Babylon 5 would not proceed in development for 2022, but would instead be held back until 2023, apparently so it would not be impacted by the imminent sale of The CW network.

The CW was founded in 2006 as a merger of The WB and UPN, owned by Warner Brothers and Paramount respectively. The two channels had struggled for a decent market share and joined forces to ensure more resources. The channel initially saw a reasonable hit with Supernatural and then a number of shows based on the DC Universe, starting Arrow and continuing with The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, Supergirl and Batwoman. The network also established other hit properties with The 100, Riverdale and The Vampire Diaries, among others. The network became stereotyped for having shows aimed at younger audiences with variable special effects, low budgets and a cheesy, old-fashioned feel. However, the network also became immensely profitable through a 2011 deal with Netflix worth $1 billion, which subsidised shows that aired to low ratings on their original American airing but garnered a much larger international audience.

The Netflix deal was terminated in 2019, with CW shows instead finding an outlet through direct overseas sales and American streaming via HBO Max. However, this did not in any way approach the sheer income generated by the prior Netflix deal. As a result, the network starting cancelling shows at rate of knots, culminating in a massacre in May 2022 when ten shows were cancelled, including Legends of Tomorrow. The CW is now being sold to the Nexstar Media Group.

The news that the Babylon 5 reboot is not dead is good, but it should come with caveats. It is possible and likely, once the deal is completed, that Nexstar will install their own CEO to replace Mark Pedowitz, who notes that he is a huge fan of the original show and has been trying to bring it back for many years. It is unlikely that a new CEO will be as invested in the project as him. New channel CEOs in fact usually terminate any shows in development they were not involved in and bring in their own projects to develop. There are a few exceptions, but they are rare. If Nextstar retain Pedowitz in the role, it's much more likely that the B5 reboot will happen. More news as we get it.

Gilmore Girls: The Complete Series

Stars Hollow, Connecticut, 2000. Lorelai Gilmore had her daughter Rory at 16 and, overcoming family opprobrium, has succeeded as the manager of a popular inn. Rory herself is now turning 16 and, anxious to give her opportunities she missed out on, Lorelai arranges for her to join a prestigious private school. With funding an issue, she reluctantly asks her rich parents for help. They agree, with the condition that Lorelai and Rory join them for dinner every Friday night. Although this helps the family heal from their problems, it also introduces new issues...and opportunities.

A while back I was in need of a new show to watch that was, in my words, "fluffy and not heavy." After some persuasion, I decided to give Gilmore Girls a go.

Gilmore Girls is a drama-comedy series which ran for seven seasons and 153 episodes from 2000 to 2007 (with a short-lived revival in 2016, which I'll cover separately). The show was created and showrun by Amy Sherman-Palladino, more recently responsible for the hugely successful The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon.  The show is primarily focused on three generations of the Gilmore family: single mother Lorelai (Lauren Graham), her teenage daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel), and her rich parents Emily (Kelly Bishop) and Richard (Edward Herrmann). The show expands over its run to become an ensemble piece, mainly drawing on the fictional town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut and populating it with a large number of colourful, larger-than-life characters.

Over its run the show concerns itself with three storylines. The main through-line is Rory's growth from a 16-year-old schoolgirl to a 22-year-old college graduate looking for her first job. The second is Lorelai becoming a businesswoman and entrepreneur despite various setbacks. The love lives of both characters receive a lot of attention, with both of them going through multiple partners, marriage proposals and love triangles in search of finding a lasting relationship. The third is the fractious relationship between the two younger Gilmores and Lorelai's parents, who are rich and generous but also snobbish, controlling and sometimes judgemental. Lorelai gave birth at 16 and, overwhelmed by her parents' shame and judgement, moved out and made a new life and family for herself in Stars Hollow, where she flourished. Much of the show's length is dominated by their slow-burning rapprochement despite them constantly relitigating past wrongs.

That description makes the show sound far heavier than it is. For most of its run, Gilmore Girls is much lighter than that. The show's killer app is its witty, quick-fire, fast-paced dialogue, a Sherman-Palladino trademark. The show laces laconic humour with cultural references which will still raise a chuckle amongst older viewers, though younger ones may be lost by the volume of references to movies from the 1950s and 1960s. The show's writing style is oddly reminiscent of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Sherman-Palladino, like Joss Whedon, cut her teeth on Roseanne), to the point that it sometimes feels like Buffy if you cut out all the supernatural stuff and focused on the school, college and relationship dramas. Oddly, that still works and makes for an entertaining show (albeit one with far less kickboxing vampires).

Witty dialogue only carries you so far, with the show living and dying on its longer-running storylines. These tend to be somewhat soapy, but are helped by the producers tending to group storylines within seasons, with one arc per season before setting up a new paradigm the following season. The seasons lasting 22 episodes each (21 for the first season) means each arc gets a fair amount of development and exploration before moving on. For the first few seasons, the show is extremely adept at fleshing out the characters and developing them and their situations to make for surprisingly compelling viewing.

It helps that the show avoids the mistake of treating its protagonists as saints. Lorelai and Rory are both flawed people and bring some of their mistakes on themselves, which they they have to learn from to improve. Lorelai's cutting humour is entertaining, but she struggles to keep it under control at times and offends people when it's used inappropriately. Both characters can also be flighty in their relationships, constantly reluctant to shut down one possibility to commit to another. Rory is also, in her own words, "spoilt" (especially after reuniting with her grandparents, who dote on her), and some of her problems stem from being protected from the full consequences of her actions. A controversial mid-series storyline where Rory has an affair with a married man is not well-handled, although it's not helped by the other actor involved getting another job, leaving the storyline unresolved. A well-explored idea is the juxtaposition between Lorelai, who had to achieve everything herself and succeeded, and Rory, who has much more support but sometimes struggles to work out what it is that she wants.

The two protagonists are well-developed and well-written and make for engaging enough leads (although arguably Rory does become the more grating of the two, especially in the penultimate season), but they are supported by a huge cast of excellent, entertaining supporting characters. Most important are Kelly Bishop and Edward Herrmann as Emily and Richard Gilmore, who are both excellent. Melissa McCarthy has a pre-stardom role as Lorelai's best friend and super-chef Sookie St. James, whilst Rory's best friend Lane (Keiko Agena) evolves from a sheltered Christian girl with a side-passion for rock music into a drummer in a band. Luke Danes (Scott Patterson) is the show's frequent voice of reason amidst all the insanity erupting around him, although Michel Gerard (Yanic Truesdale), Lorelai's snobbish co-worker, has a lot of comic potential which is unrealised. Liza Weil as Paris Geller is probably the show's most underrated player, evolving from Rory's sworn nemesis at school into a frenemy and then a trusted ally, if a rather idiosyncratic one.

The show also features a number of excellent turns from before-they-were-famous actors: Jared Padalecki (Supernatural) has a long-running role as Rory's first boyfriend Dean (a name more ironic in retrospect), whilst Milo Ventimiglia (Heroes, This is Us) plays Luke's nephew Jess. Sean Gunn (the Guardians of the Galaxy movies) has the best role, that of hapless town everyman and scene-stealer Kirk, who is forever changing jobs and engaging in bizarre money-making schemes.

The show's other strength is its depiction of its fictional small town setting. Stars Hollow is idyllic but increasingly bizarre, partaking of increasingly odd festivals and holidays. The town soon becomes as iconic to the show as Springfield is to The Simpsons, Sunnydale is to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Pawnee is to Parks & Recreation. It is completely unrealistic - the town is tiny but can afford to throw huge and insane events at the drop of a hat - but it helps add to the It's a Wonderful Life vibe of an idealised Americana that the show is going for.

Where the show falters is its length. Although seven seasons is the standard length for a long-running US TV show, most of them have maybe a bit more stuff going on than Gilmore Girls. It does feel like the show has exhausted most of its story possibilities by the midpoint of Season 5, with Rory at university, Lorelai and her ideal boyfriend hooked up and most people's lives going pretty well. The show makes the mistake at this point of coming up with more and more contrived reasons to upset the applecart. Rory and Lorelai spend part of Season 6 not speaking, destroying the central relationship of the show for no real good reason, and then the show pulls the "hitherto unknown child" card on a character like it's a soap opera in its sixteenth year. Season 6 ends awfully, not helped by Sherman-Palladino quitting due to workload. Season 7 has the other writers performing emergency surgery to rescue things and the show does end quite well (albeit with a reduction in witty dialogue), but clearly not according to the original plan. That plan - for better or worse - was eventually executed in the follow-up mini-series, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, which will be covered elsewhere.

The show also falters at other moments: Milo Ventimiglia is a great actor but Jess is written far too negatively in his early appearances and becomes a more likeable, relatable character only after he leaves the show as a regular (he does recur very intermittently in later seasons and in the revival). A storyline in Season 5 about the town selectman election is very abruptly abandoned with no resolution. Arguably Lane Kim's issues with her mother are resolved a little too easily. Those problems are at least fairly minor and can be overlooked in the long run.

Gilmore Girls (****) is, for most of its length, a witty and funny show with satisfying character arcs, which benefits from making the characters more complex and deeper than they may first appear. The show delves into ideals of family and relationships in a quite entertaining manner. Like most shows lasting for over 150 episodes, it does sometimes struggle to maintain the quality and there are big swings in the story in the penultimate season which are irritating, but it does pull it together for an effective conclusion. The show is available to watch worldwide on Netflix now.

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BABYLON 5 reboot to remain in development for another year

J. Michael Straczynski has provided an update to the percolating Babylon 5 reboot at The CW. The network has chosen not to pick up the pilot for its autumn 2022 launch slate, but, in an unusual move, is keeping project in active development with a view to it potentially launching in autumn 2023 instead.

According to Straczynski, the development process was complicated by the recent sale of the CW network, which had an impact on the type of shows and pilots in development. During this process, it appears that Babylon 5 fell outside the parameters of shows that were being picked up. Babylon 5 is something of an outlier for The CW, which has a lot of youth-oriented shows and superhero series. Babylon 5, on the other hand, is an adult-focused epic space opera.

Mark Pedowitz, President of The CW, has kept the show's development ticking over for an extra year whilst the dust settles from the sale of the network and everybody involved can see how the sale affects other shows in development.

If Babylon 5 is picked up for 2023, it will be very appropriate, as that would mark the 30th anniversary of the original show's debut.

BABYLON 5 reboot in development with J. Michael Straczynski in charge

It's been rumoured and discussed many times over the years, but something is now officially happening: a Babylon 5 reboot is in the planning stages with original creator and writer J. Michael Straczynski attached.

The new project is being helmed by the CW, although reportedly the show will retain a similar sensibility to the original and will not skew younger, as a lot of their content does. The show will open with Earthforce officer John Sheridan being assigned to Babylon 5, a massive space station serving as a diplomatic exchange and trade hub. Simultaneously with his arrival, an exploratory Earth mission inadvertently triggers a conflict with a more advanced alien civilisation, threatening humanity and several other races.

So far, this is only a development announcement and the show has not yet been greenlit to series or a pilot stage. It is unclear if any of Babylon 5's other creative forces are involved, such as fellow executive producer John Copeland, composer Christopher Franke or the visual effects team, or if any of the actors from the original series such as Bruce Boxleitner, Claudia Christian, Patricia Tallman, Peter Jurasik or Bill Mumy may return in new roles.

A reboot was considered the more likely form for the show to take, due to the deaths of so many original series actors (including Michael O'Hare, Jerry Doyle, Richard Biggs, Mira Furlan, Andreas Katsulas and Stephen Furst) making a sequel series unlikely. The original show is also considered a cult success without the familiarity of, say, a Star Trek or Star Wars, making a reboot of the original story more viable.

The original incarnation of Babylon 5 debuted in 1993 with a TV movie called The Gathering. Five seasons followed, totalling 110 episodes (with Straczynski writing 93 episodes in total), along with four TV movies and a spin-off series, Crusade, which ran for one season. Straczynski later penned a potential pilot for a second spin-off, Legends of the Rangers, and a straight-to-DVD movie in 2007 called Babylon 5: The Lost Tales. Warner Brothers expressed an interest in developing more content, but Straczynski bailed out of the project due to a lack of budget and interest in developing a spin-off feature film he'd penned. The franchise also extended to tabletop roleplaying games, miniatures wargames and a line of novels.

Babylon 5 won two Hugo Awards during its time on air and attracted immense acclaim for its heavily serialised, pre-planned story arc at a time when most TV shows were still episodic. Babylon 5's structure and storytelling ambitions inspired other writers, including Damon Lindelof, Joss Whedon and the Wachowskis, whilst Ronald D. Moore consulted with Straczynski during the development of his take on Battlestar Galactica. Babylon 5's epic story and meticulous worldbuilding drew on sources such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Frank Herbert, Ray Bradbury and British SFF shows Blake's 7, The Prisoner and Doctor Who for inspiration, as well as the original Star Trek (Straczynski tapped a number of writers from the original Star Trek to work on the show in its first season). The show also won numerous awards for its cutting-edge (for the time) digital effects, which paved the way for CGI dominate the TV visual effects industry.

Warner Brothers recently released a high definition remaster of the original series on streaming services worldwide. Although the live action footage looks vastly superior, the CGI is variably upscaled.

Straczynski's star has risen since Babylon 5, with him penning multiple successful comic books, developing the story for the 2011 Thor movie (as well as cameoing in the film), being nominated for an Oscar for his script for the 2008 movie Changeling and co-writing the Netflix series Sense8 with the Wachowskis. Straczynski recently released a well-received autobiography, Becoming Superman, and a new novel called Together We Will Go. He also recently completed the editing of his friend Harlan Ellison's fifty-year-gestating short story anthology The Last Dangerous Visions, which is expected for publication next year.

This is a promising development, although fans will likely be concerned that the CW is developing the property rather than HBO or HBO Max, which could perhaps give the series the resources and exposure it deserves. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

The 100: Season 3

The survivors of the Ark have formed a tentative alliance with the native Twelve Tribes, or "Grounders", in the wake of their victory over the inhabitants of Mount Weather. However, a schism threatens to open on the fate of Mount Weather's science and technology. Adding to the chaos, when a long-separated group of survivors from the Ark manage to regroup with their fellows after months of fighting the Grounders, they are horrified by the idea of the alliance and seek to undermine it. At the same tribe, the Ice Nation tribe also seeks to break the treaty and destroy the Ark. The only person capable of speaking to both sides, Clarke, has gone into exile. Meanwhile, the superintelligent AI which unleashed the nuclear war in the first place is still active...and has plans for the remnants of humanity.

The 100 is a fast-moving, intense show. It's covered an enormous amount of ground in just two seasons and the third season continues this trend. When so many shows are capable of sitting back for two or three episodes in a row and not do very much, The 100 can cheerfully tear through a season's worth of plot twists and character deaths during that time. As a story it's relentless, and perfect for binge watching one episode after the next.

The third season is very much a story of two halves: the first half focuses on the Grounders and their internal dispute with the Ice Nation, and the citizens of Arcadia (as the crashed Ark, now being converted into a city, is called) and their own rift on how to proceed with the alliance. The former plot is understandable, as the Skykru (as they are known) have killed a lot of Grounders. The latter is, however, completely ludicrous. The few hundred survivors of the Ark in their single valley with limited bullets and supplies are no match at all for the Grounders, who seem to number in the hundreds of thousands and (as this season reveals) controls most of the Eastern Seaboard of both the former US and Canada, and the notion that any intelligent person would demand to go on the offensive against this unbeatable enemy is fundamentally unconvincing.

Fortunately, this plot becomes moot as the ruthlessly amoral AI known as ALIE begins to take over both Grounders and people from Arcadia, aiming at total subjugation to a vision known as the "City of Light". Survivors from both sides, scarred by their previous conflicts, have to join forces to take on this mutual threat.

The plot structure is pretty standard but The 100 does good things with it. It's also built up enough of an enormous main and supporting cast that dividing them against one another and making them fight (often to the death) is a viable way of telling the story (and cutting actor salaries!). The show also hasn't forgotten about previous conflicts and storylines and some very long-running stories reach their pay-offs this season as well.

Unfortunately, the storytelling is often hampered by plot twists that feel more belaboured than natural. Behind-the-scenes drama led to the early exit of one very popular character, whose death feels cheap and pointless. It's also hard not to feel that the first half of the season is rendered completely moot by the second, although the finale does hint at some more story to come in that area. The show also continues its curious trend of having some pretty good actors in the like of Henry Ian Cusick and Paige Turco and proceeding to not having them do very much. Bob Morley also has to work overtime in his role as Bellamy, who inexplicably switches sides several times for no apparent reason.

For the most part, performances are good (Richard Harmon's world-weary, constantly-expecting death attitude as John Murphy becomes a lot of fun this year) even if a few of the cast are firmly at the cheesy overacting end of the scale. But The 100 does a great line in sneering villainy and pulp action, so it's not inappropriate. The writing could be stronger in places, but the fast-moving plot and ruthless attitude to character deaths makes for a series that is frequently more gripping and interesting than it feels it should be. The cliffhanger, which raises the stakes dramatically to the global level, certainly left me keen to see what will happen next year in the fourth (and potentially final, given the so-so ratings) season.

The third season of The 100 (****) maintains the quality from the second, with a couple of brief dips due to implausible plot twists and a few cheap character deaths that feel more motivated by a producer's annoyance than story requirements. But overall it's still a watchable, fun and sometimes genuinely morally interesting show. The season will be released on 26 October on DVD and Blu-Ray.

The 100: Season 2

The Earth has been ravaged by nuclear war, with the survivors either being mutants ("Grounders") who have adapted to the radiation or genetically-enhanced exiles who have survived in space on an orbiting ark. A hundred delinquents have been sent down from the Ark to see if the ground is survivable, but they have also encountered both the Grounders and a society of survivors living in a massive fallout shelter under Mount Weather, west of the ruins of Washington D.C. The hostility and paranoia of the shelter-dwellers forces both the crew of the Ark and the Grounders into an uneasy alliance.

The first season of The 100 took a while to get going, being mired in tiresome teenage romance and lots of trekking around Canadian woodland for quite a few episodes before it cut loose and turned into a bleak story of survival and moral compromises. The second season of The 100 turns this up to the max and is a much stronger set of episodes from the off.

The second season benefits from a multi-stranded storyline which rotates through sets of characters and locations. The main storyline sees the youngsters from the Ark forced to team up with the survivors of the station's dramatic crash-landing in the Season 1 finale and then attempt to forge a peace with the Grounders so they can rescue their friends (from both factions) who are imprisoned under Mount Weather. This story is rich with drama, with both camps having internal problems and the kids from the Ark - who have spent months surviving on the ground - understandably refusing to relinquish authority to the very people who sent them to their deaths. There is the scope for melodrama, but the show largely skirts it through a relentless pace, stronger worldbuilding (the culture of the Grounders is explored a lot this season) and occasional harsh plot turns that manage to out-shock Game of Thrones.

The main subplot is set inside the Mount Weather shelter and explores what happens to the forty-odd kids taken prisoner at the end of Season 1. This story is also pretty decent, but becomes a little stretched out due to its obvious benefits as a budget-saving measure (since it uses just a few interior sets as opposed to the tons of exterior footage for the Ark/Grounders stuff) and a limited number of characters to explore. Another storyline follows Jaha, the former leader of the Ark, as he - quite randomly - survives the Ark's crash and becomes - even more randomly - a messianic figure who believes he can lead his people to salvation across the desert. This story is the most preposterous, but works because Jaha is played by the hugely enjoyable Isaiah Washington and purely exists because the producers were going to quite blatantly kill the character and then decided to keep him around because they liked the actor. Fortunately it does fulfil a purpose at the end, forming the bridge into the forthcoming third season which will up the stakes even further.

The series works thanks to some enjoyably spirited performances from an enthusiastic cast, a genuinely impressive desire not to wimp out on hard decisions and moral muddles, a plot that spins on a dime and some quite impressive action sequences. That's not to say it isn't perfect. Some storylines feel a bit random and the longer episode run (three more than in the first) feels like it was more accomplished with filler than because more episodes were needed to pack everything in. An episode featuring characters hiding from an escaped gorilla in a desolate zoo is rather pointless, for example. Dialogue also too often based around exposition, and the show does feel like it could do with more humour. More on the plus side of things, the forced romance elements have been dialled way back (and the few romances which do emerge feel a lot more plausible) and the characterisation is very strong. Particularly impressive is how Bellamy, the primary antagonist in the first half of Season 1, evolves into a heroic figure through a natural and believable progression of events.

A few hiccups aside, the season builds up to a genuinely startling finale (apparently based on the idea of what if the good guys were put in a position where they had to carry out a Red Wedding?) that leaves a lot of unanswered questions for the third season, due to air in early 2016.

The second season of The 100 (****) improves on the more variable opening season and soon becomes hugely enjoyable viewing. The season will be released on 13 October on DVD and Blu-Ray.

The 100: Season 1

AD 2149. Ninety-seven years after a nuclear war devastated the Earth, more than two and a half thousand people live in refuge on an orbiting space station, the Ark. With life support beginning to fail, the ruling council of the Ark decides to see if Earth is survivable by sending down a hundred criminals. As adult criminals are executed to save food and air, this means sending down young delinquents.

As the hundred exiles fight to survive on Earth - and later against the other survivors they discover living in the woods - the inhabitants of the Ark also fall into an internal power struggle as it becomes clear that the station cannot support them for much longer, and not everyone can survive to make it to the ground.

The 100 is a post-apocalyptic drama that seems to take great delight in its inspirations: the show comes across as the result of a collision between Battlestar Galactica, Lost, The Hunger Games and Fallout. The show adroitly fuses its inspirations in fun and original ways and ends up being a lot more entertaining than it has any right being, but it does take a little while to get there.

The show is the product of American network The CW, famed its glossy productions featuring preposterously photogenic young actors engaging in life-and-death struggles whilst also trying to straighten out their elaborately complicated love lives. The 100 somehow manages to turn this tendency up to 11: characters angst about their personal relationships almost at the same level they worry about starvation, dehydration, being impaled by spears and radiation sickness, all of which are constant and simultaneous threats. This would risk being silly, except for the odd hints that the writers are deliberately sending up this aspect of the network's shows. The series also gets away with it because it is also one of the most surprisingly brutal television shows on air. Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead have made shocking main character deaths more accepted on cable, but for a more youth-oriented series The 100 is startlingly bleak. We get population counts for both the exiles on the ground and the survivors on the Ark and both numbers drop at a rate of knots as the season progresses and the writers gleefully take an axe (or gun, or airlock, or plague, or in one highly memorable moment, a giant metal shuriken thing) to the cast.

The show gets off to a mixed start, being both unafraid to kill over apparently major players from the off but also unleashing some of the most ham-fisted, expositionary and clumsy writing you'll see on television all year. Characters initially come across as being very archetypal (or, if you're less kind, cliched as hell) and the actors initially seem unsure how to handle the material they are given. Henry Ian Cusick, in his first major TV role since playing Desmond on Lost, is both saddled with a dubious accent and some poor characterisation and can only respond by hamming it up for the first few weeks. Dialogue is poor and little reason is given for us to care about any of these characters.

Fortunately, that changes and fairly quickly. By the sixth episode the writers have added a lot of ambiguity and (relative) complexity to the characters, the actors have much more layered material to work with and the show becomes a bit more experimental, not afraid to ditch half the cast for a week or two in favour of flashbacks to add depth and backstory. The writers also become quite good at creating internal conflict within the characters, giving them more to do than just stand around and look pretty.


This is helped by some fairly intense pacing. The series is uninterested in adopting a format and sticking with it, with shifts in factions, locations and motivations taking place on a near-weekly basis. The initial split between the ground and the space station is well-handled, despite it occasionally feeling like you're watching episodes of Lost and BSG that have been fan-spliced together (the presence of actors from both shows - particularly BSG - not helping). When our heroes on the ground find a mysterious hatch in the forest (albeit one that opens immediately and not after a tediously-drawn out 16-episode struggle) and characters in orbit wrestle with their consciences as they have to ration supplies and blast a traitor out of the airlock, The 100 feels like it is risking becoming a parody of those other series. However, the show then moves into other territory, becoming more confident and forging its own path. The season finale, which not so much changes the premise as drives a bulldozer through it and then burns down the remains, is the most game-changing cliffhanger in a series in recent times.

The actors are, for the most part, likable. The younger castmembers bring enthusiasm and gumption, although some are more experienced than others (Eliza Taylor did her time in the trenches of Australian daytime soap opera). More veteran actors are used to populate the Ark and, after that initial writing hurdle in the first few episodes, are great. However, the show's flirtation with killing off Chancellor Jaha gets a little old. Clearly they realised that Isaiah Washington is too good to off so easily, but it'd be better if they stopped putting him in near-death situations every other week. The weak spot is the handling of romance, which is trite. Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) and Lincoln (Ricky Whittle) fall in love without exchanging a word (although later on they do manage to earn it back), whilst the budding romance between Clarke (Taylor) and Finn (Thomas McDonell) is hamstrung by the utter lack of any chemistry at all between the two actors. Fortunately the writers seem to cotton onto this and use it to their advantage later on. As the season progresses there is also less time for teen stuff as the prospect of all-out war rears its head and some new, more enigmatic enemies enter the fray.

For its first season, The 100 (***½) starts off pretty poor but improves rapidly to become a solidly entertaining show. The writing starts out clumsy and the dialogue jarring, but it gets better. The characters become a lot more interesting and conflicted and the show gleefully subverts audience expectations at almost every turn. Certainly worth a look, especially as the second season so far has been a big improvement. The first season is available now in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

The Tomorrow People (2013)

The next stage of human evolution has begun. All over the world, individuals are developing the powers of telepathy, telekinesis and teleportation. A secret government-funded agency, Ultra, is tasked with keeping these individuals under control or removing their powers altogether. However, a small group of 'Tomorrow People' has taken refuge under the streets of New York and is preparing for the day when they can escape persecution.

The Tomorrow People is an SF franchise with some history behind it. It originally aired from 1973 to 1979 as a zero-budget children's programme in the UK. Although almost forgotten today, it remains the second-longest-running British SF show of all time in terms of episode count (just beating out Red Dwarf). The series was then revived in 1992 for a three-season run. The premise of both shows was that humanity is developing into another form of life - homo superior* - and that the new 'break-outs' (humans who have developed these powers) need to be helped by the existing Tomorrow People to deal with their newfound abilities. Both shows also used more overtly SF elements like aliens and robots, with the Tomorrow People using an alien spacecraft as their headquarters and relying on a powerful AI named TIM to help them.

This latest reboot is from the American CW network and is surprisingly faithful to the original show. Character names are reused, original lead actor Nicholas Young has a cameo and even TIM (now a human-built computer) returns. However, the premise is complicated, darkened and made a bit less hokey. There are no aliens or spaceships and the struggle is now presented as being between the Tomorrow People and those humans aware of their existence and who see them as a threat, not a symbol of hope. There are also internal struggles within the Tomorrow People, between those who seek to use their powers for good, those who just want to get on with their lives and others who actively want to use their powers to commit crimes.

Our main POV character is Stephen Jameson (Robbie Amell), who breaks out in the first episode and finds himself torn between joining Ultra (run by his uncle Jedikiah, played by genre-favourite Mark Pellegrino) and a group of rebels led by John (Luke Mitchell) and Cara (Peyton List). Relations are complicated by John and Cara's group having been founded years earlier by Stephen's missing father Roger (Jeffrey Pierce). Early episodes play up a cheesy love triangle between Stephen, John and Cara and rely on break-out-of-the-week plots in which Stephen, having joined Ultra to spy on it for the rebels, has to maintain his cover whilst also helping his friends. Some episodes show promise - Cara's back-story is surprisingly well-handled, with List playing the younger, more rebellious version of the character with more aplomb than the somewhat dull modern equivalent - but it's pretty disposable stuff.

The show shifts up a gear in the mid-season, when more people find out about Stephen's powers and the real main antagonist, the Founder (played with scene-destroying relish by ex-Spartacus actor Simon Merrells) shows up to complicate things. The ongoing story arc comes more to the fore and for a few episodes the show almost lives up to its potential. Particularly welcome is Luke Mitchell stepping up to the plate and impressing more in the role of John. The showrunners seem to be aware of this, with a move in the mid-season away from focusing on Stephen as the protagonist (despite bringing enthusiasm to the role, Amell's range is rather limited) and instead on the group as a whole. This works well until the last couple of episodes when the plot starts lurching in all kinds of random directions and the conclusion to the season-long arc ends up being a bit of a damp squib. The cliffhanger pulls it back a little by providing some interesting groundwork for the next season, but given there isn't going to be one (the show was cancelled after filming concluded) that doesn't really help.

The Tomorrow People (***) is watchable, cheesy and disposable fun which occasionally delivers some above-average performances and episodes. There's certainly a lot of mileage in the premise and it's a shame that the show won't be given a chance to improve with time and more episodes. However, the show is also predictable, frequently badly-written and some of the actors should really think about taking up other careers: Jeffrey Piece is particularly awful, over-acting to the hilt and making even his cornier young co-stars look amazing in comparison. Overall, the series is only worth a watch once you have exhausted the several dozen better series around at the moment.

* Believe it or not, original series creator Roger Price was discussing TV projects with David Bowie in the early 1970s and found himself detailing the plot of the in-development Tomorrow People with the singer. Bowie liked the term so much that he nabbed it for his song "Oh! You Pretty Things!" (from Hunky Dory). The term was previously used in the X-Men comics in 1961, long predating either usage, but apparently neither Price nor Bowie were aware of this.