Will aliens invade The CW?
The idea of sitcoms taking the sci-fi route with aliens from another planet has been seemingly put to the test this season with the new ABC comedy The Neighbors. Premiering later this week, there’s been a decent deal of negative buzz from the upcoming series though it’s unclear exactly how audiences will react to the comedy with an interesting central plot. While past alien efforts such as V or Invasion have been quite short-lived in recent years, it seems that won’t stop The CW from trying to take a stab at the idea. Now, the network is continuing down a dramatic path with some inspiration from one hit feature:District 9.
Deadline reports that The CW has started development on a potential new series called Oxygen, created by The Good Wife‘s Meredith Averill. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol scribes Andre Nemec and Josh Appelbaum will produce under their Space Floor TV banner with Scott Rosenberg, joining Olé Entertainment’s Richard Shepard, Sean Furst and Bryan Furst.
The series will seek to bring prejudice to the front of the issues as District 9 did as the story will revolve around ”a high school pilot program, the first attempt to integrate a group of humanoid aliens stranded on earth who until now have been living in forced segregation. The program is complicated by the prejudices and competing agendas on all sides, and could be saved or destroyed by a burgeoning romance between a human girl and alien boy”.
Oxygen is the latest in a line of pilots for The CW that are currently in the works, including an adaptation of the hit filmBattle Royale, the failed drama from last year that is currently being reworked The Selection, a U.S. version of Misfits from Josh Schwartz, an adaptation of the novel Embrace, a new supernatural drama Copeland Prep from Bret Easton Ellis, anAlice in Wonderland reimagining Wunderland and perhaps the most high-profile of all Amazon which will bring a Wonder Woman origins tale to the small screen.
We’ll keep you posted on if the pilot is greenlight for production.
