First Look: Syfy's "Riverworld"

Looking for a sneak peek at Syfy's new mini-series Riverworld, starring Dollhouse's Tahmoh Penikett? You're in luck.

Distributor RHI has released the first trailer for the mini-series (itself a backdoor pilot for an ongoing series), which also stars Laura Vandervoort, Mark Deklin, Peter Wingfield, and Alan Cumming, among others. The project was written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe (The Dresden Files) and directed by Stuart Gillard (90210).

Here's how Syfy described the four-hour mini-series:

"Tahmoh Penikett (Battlestar Galactica/Dollhouse) and Laura Vandervoort (Smallville) star in Riverworld, based on the popular award-winning series of novels by Philip Jose Farmer. Penikett stars as Matt Ellman, an American war zone reporter who has witnessed the worst of humanity first-hand yet still grasps on to an optimistic spirit. When a suicide bomber kills both Matt and his fiance Jessie, played by Vandervoort, they awaken, separated in a mysterious world where everyone who has ever lived on Earth, seems to have been "reborn" along the banks of a seemingly endless river.

Determined to locate Jessie, Matt joins forces with a 13th century female samurai warrior named Tomoe (Jeananne Goossen) and American novelist Sam 'Mark Twain' Clemens (Mark Deklin). Together they sail upriver in search of its source, and to discover where they are and who put them there. Alan Cumming (Tin Man) guest stars as the mysterious 'Caretaker.' Riverworld (Airdate 2010) is produced by Reunion Pictures and is shooting in Vancouver, BC. RHI will distribute internationally."

The roughly two-minute trailer for Riverworld can be viewed below.

Riverworld is slated to air in 2010 on Syfy.

Comments

wildhoney said…

Looking interesting. Kind of fun and different. Hopefully, Penikett's character is more charismatic than the boring one he plays on Dollhouse.

9/29/2009

Anonymous said…

Looks amazing, and I'm really glad to see Penikett in a well written and interesting drama, playing a well written and interesting character again. His character, Ballard, in Dollhouse, is weaker than river water (get the pun?) Its also great to see two BSG alumni together again. The concept behind the riverworld reminds me of BSG in fact, when Baltar and Leoben talk about life after death and crossing the river. Did one inspire the other? Really looking forward to Riverworld.

9/30/2009

Have a Burning Question for Team Darlton, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, or Michael Emerson?

Lost fans: you don't have to make your way to the island via Ajira Airways in order to ask a question of the creative team or the series' stars. Televisionary is taking questions from fans to put to Lost 's executive producers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and stars Matthew Fox ("Jack Shephard"), Evangeline Lilly ("Kate Austen"), and Michael Emerson ("Benjamin Linus") for a series of on-camera interviews taking place this weekend. If you have a specific question for any of the above producers or actors from Lost , please leave it in the comments section below . I'll be accepting questions until midnight PT tonight and, while I can't promise I'll be able to ask any specific inquiry due to the brevity of these on-camera interviews, I am looking for some insightful and thought-provoking questions to add to the mix. So who knows: your burning question might get asked after all.

Continue reading full story...

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

Continue reading full story...

In Defense of Downton Abbey (Or, Don't Believe Everything You Read)

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Which means, if I can get on my soapbox for a minute, that in order to judge something, one ought to experience it first hand. One can't know how the pudding has turned out until one actually tastes it. I was asked last week--while I was on vacation with my wife--for an interview by a journalist from The Daily Mail, who got in touch to talk to me about PBS' upcoming launch of ITV's period drama Downton Abbey , which stars Hugh Bonneville, Dame Maggie Smith, Dan Stevens, Elizabeth McGovern, and a host of others. (It launches on Sunday evening as part of PBS' Masterpiece Classic ; my advance review of the first season can be read here , while my interview with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and stars Dan Stevens and Hugh Bonneville can be read here .) Normally, I would have refused, just based on the fact that I was traveling and wasn't working, but I love Downton Abbey and am so enchanted with the proj

Continue reading full story...

[Televisionary]

Search This Blog