Caprica Pilot, BG Webisodes, New Scare Tactics, Alice Miniseries

The Scifi Channel had their upfront presentation last night and announced a bunch of things coming up soon and in development. I'll summarize the highlights with links to the press releases at the NBC Universal Media Village SciFi page.

The Battlestar Galactica prequel, Caprica, has been given the greenlight for a two hour backdoor pilot. Production will beging soon with an airdate likely this fall. The official description for the pilot movie is "Set 50 years before Battlestar Galactica, Caprica follows two rival families - the Greystones and the Adamas - as they grow, compete, and thrive in the vibrant world of the 12 Colonies. Enmeshed in the burgeoning technology of artificial intelligence and robotics that will eventually lead to the creation of the Cylons, the two houses go toe-to-toe. Caprica will deliver all of the passion, intrigue, political backbiting, family conflict and hardcore action that always leaves Galactica fans begging for more. " Full Caprica Press Release

Also on the Galactica front, SciFi will debut the fourth season opener online at Noon ET on Friday, April 4th, the same day it debuts on the channel. They will also be having new webisodes but didn't announce any details. Finally, they will be launching an online social gaming experience pitting humans versus cylons. Other new online features will be a new site, The Game Site, that "will be a hub for reports on all things relevant to the gamer lifestyle." and The SciFi Game Center collecting various casual online games to play. The David Hewlitt produced series Starcrossed will be an online show and will debut in late 2008. Finally, the SciFi Rewind video player will have a large catalog of SciFi channel shows to watch on demand. Full SciFi Digital Press Release

SciFi Reality

Reality shows include more Mind Control With Darren Brown, the return of Scare Tactics (now hosted by Tracy Morgan), more Ghost Hunters International, and a couple of new pilots, Estate of Panic and BrainTrust. In conjunction with the release of the new Indiana Jones movie, SciFi has a new documentary special on The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls that will air on May 18th following a marathon of the first three Indiana Jones movies. Full Reality/Alternate Programming Press Release. Full Ghost Hunters International Press Release

Scripted Development

New scripted developement includes the following:

(Full Scripted Press Release)

Alice - The producers of Tin Man adapt Alice In Wonderland for a mini-series.

The Stranded - A pilot movie based on the Stranded comic by Mike Carey, recently part of the SciFi/Virgin Comics partnership. Carey is writing the script for the pilot. Virgin Comics has part of Issue 1 of the series available to view online.

From a Virgin Comics Press Release: “From day one,” Carey says, “working on The Stranded has felt like being at a nexus point of creativity. Virgin and SCI FI created the perfect platform, and then supported the book and the creative team through all the stages of development. This feels like something we all own, and we all love. I can't wait to take it forward into its next incarnation.”

True Believer - Rosario Dawson produced pilot that is "a quirky, contemporary dramedy about a 20-something comic book nerd who hires a washed-up real-life Superhero to be his crime-fighting sidekick and teach him the ropes. Together, this unlikely duo set out to save the World. "

Deputized - A 2-hour pilot written by Joe Gazzam, Deputized is a dramedy in which an "average Joe" suddenly finds himself possessing special abilities after being accidentally fitted with an alien exoskeleton that cannot be removed. As a result, he is enlisted to serve on the inter-galactic police force that patrols the universe.

Finally, Richard Branson (head of Virgin) has joined SciFi's Visions for Tomrrow Advisory Board. Full Branson/VOT Press Release

SFTV Network Ratings Update

The second week of the new season has come and gone and none of the new genre shows have been cancelled yet!

That doesn't mean that a few dropped off a bit in the second week and they better not keep sliding, though.

First up, NBC's SciFi Monday has some legs, although Journeyman's are getting a bit wobbly, in part due to losing a good chunk of the lead-in provided by Heroes. The first week's total ratings for Heroes were bumped up a bit due to a new Nielsen rule that allows a network to show the same episode twice in a week and add the ratings points together if all of the commercials are the same. Thus the second week of Heroes dropped quite a bit from the first week but in actuality was close to the same. Both Chuck and Journeyman dropped a bit over 10% from their first week, which isn't too bad compared to some of the other new shows in their second week.

On Tuesday, Reaper did OK, dropping about 15% from its debut, but not losing any of its Beauty and the Geek lead-in.

Wednesday saw a big drop by The Bionic Woman, about 18% in ratings and 27% in the adult 18-49 demographic. Wednesday also saw Pushing Daisies debut very strongly with an 8.3 overnight rating.

On Thursday, Smallville held fairly close to its season debut and Supernatural returned at about its season average.

Friday saw CBS's lineup hold fairly steady, with Ghost Whisperer, Moonlight, and Numb3rs dropping only slightly from their season debuts.

Thanks for The Futon Critic for the ratings info...

On the cable front, Stargate Atlantis returned to SciFi on Sept 28th and drew a 1.2 rating. Definitely better than Painkiller Jane or Flash Gordon had been doing. This past Friday, SciFi started airing the Battlestar Galactica Razor flashbacks during Flash Gordon, which in turn delayed the start of Stargate Atlantis. If you don't want to sit through Flash Gordon, SciFi is making them available online as well. Also, it appears that the Friday night before the Razor movie airs, SciFi will air all of them during the 9:00 pm to 10:30 pm time slot during an Enterprise marathon.

In other SciFi news, they announced that Ghost Hunters International will debut in January. It looks like between the original Ghost Hunters, the Ghost Hunters International, and the upcoming UFO Hunters, they'll be having something new each week year round.

As for my TV Big Shot Network(s), I've done fair the first week (didn't realize how significant the points were for a ratings gain, which really paid off for shows that debuted strong versus the network's average last year) but I hope to take advantage of the gains in budget I made selling sliding shows and buying rising shows to start to make progress. That's why there isn't much SFTV in SFTVPlus because most of the genre shows dropped in the second week. Yes, I have no clue about the image for my network, it keeps showing up even when I have replaced it with something else. There's still a few bugs to be worked out of the system.