Syfy Announces Seven New Series

Kevin Sorbo and Lee Majors return to the SF fold, while the Sanctuary team gives us Robin Hood in space

A comedy about zombies, Robin Hood and space and a bionic makeover feature among the premises of seven new shows from Syfy. And what a curious bunch of shows they are. None of them eaxcatly leaps out as a FUTURE GENRE CLASSIC from the descriptions in then press release, but hey, you never know… After all, the premise to Being Human sounded rubbish.

BALL & CHAIN

• Executive Producers: Bob Cooper and JJ Jamieson for Landscape Entertainment
• Executive Producer/Writer: Andrew Miller
• Studios: A Universal Cable Productions/Fremantle Media co-production

After months of emotional tumult, Edgar and Mallory call their relationship quits. As they say their final goodbyes, the ex-lovers are nearly hit by a meteorite that, it turns out, imbues them with extraordinary powers. Unfortunately, the powers only work when they are in close proximity to each other. Though the last thing they want to do is stay together, they'll need to try if they hope to overcome the newly arrived other-worldly forces that threaten to destroy them and anyone else who gets in the way.

ME AND LEE

• Executive Producers/Writers: Matthew Salzberg and Jenji Kohan
• Executive Producer: Steven Pearl
• Studio: Lionsgate

In this 1/2-hour single-camera series, a down-on-his-luck 20-something undergoes back surgery, only to find that the procedure did not go well. Enter Lee Majors, who claims he has the perfect solution. He entices the young man into his ultra high-tech lab and makes him bionic. Now intrinsically bound together, Majors tries helping his new partner get his life back on track.

ORION

• Co-Executive Producers/Writers: Dirk Blackman & Howard McCain (the writer director team that brought you Outlander )
• Co-Executive Producers: George Krstic & Ryuhei Kitamura
• Supervising Producer: FJ Desanto
• Studio: Universal Cable Productions

National Treasure meets Firefly in this swashbuckling space opera about an adventurous female relic hunter and her team as they hunt down – and sometimes steal – valuable and powerful objects to sell on the black market, all while staying one step ahead of the bounty hunters hot on their heels.

SHERWOOD

• Writer: Damian Kindler
• Executive Producers: Damian Kindler, Martin Wood and Amanda Tapping (the team behind Sanctuary ) for My Plastic Badgers Productions

In this Robin Hood story for the 23rd century, a young man of privilege teams up with a misfit spaceship crew to right the wrongs of his family.

LEGENDARY

• Executive Producer: David ( Battlestar Galactica ) Eick
• Supervising Producers/Writers: Adam Karp & Royal McGraw
• Producer: Kevin Sorbo
• Studio: Universal Cable Productions

A 1/2-hour single-camera series in which Kevin Sorbo plays an exaggerated version of himself as a former syndicated television series star. When a fan approaches Sorbo to enlist his skills in combating the underworld mythological creatures that threaten to destroy Los Angeles, an unlikely partnership is formed. Together, they use their intimate knowledge of the myths of Hercules to defeat a myriad of beasts. (Isn’t this just a variation on the Hercules episode “Yes Virginia, There Is A Hercules”?)

HUMAN RELATIONS

• Co-Executive Producer/Writer: Scott Prendergast
• Executive Producers: Michael Rotenberg and Tom Lassally for 3 Arts
• Executive Producers: John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky for Ternion
• Studio: Universal Cable Productions

The Office meets Men in Black in this project featuring an office Temp who slowly discovers that his off-kilter and odd-ball bosses at the strange hi-tech "ad agency" where he works are really aliens working on a plan to destroy the Earth.

ZEROS

• Executive Producers: David Kenin and Steve Brenner
• Co-Executive Producers: Chris Provost & Dave Hales

In this 1/2-hour single-camera satire, when the zombie population of Marshall City overcomes the 30-foot barrier separating the infected people from the rest of the city, the Zombie Extermination and Removal Operations company (the Zeros) are called in to keep the peace. When they can get out of their own way long enough to focus on a case, they are pretty effective with very unorthodox methods.