SyFy (ugh) working on Alien Nation reimagining and space opera

Interview with Tim Minear about Alien Nation. [Link]

TIM MINEAR: There is a way to do an alien invasion story that is not Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or gleaming metal ships hovering over cities with laser canons. There’s a way to do an alien invasion story that’s real, and creeping and complex, but totally recognizable. Because it’s happening right now, more so in Europe than in the States. It’s an alien invasion not through hovering space ships and laser beams, but through birth rates and demography. Alien Nation would draw partly from that European clash of civilizations and drop it into the continental US. A French-like ghetto slum in Dallas, or a Gaza Strip in Seattle. The central thematic question is assimilation versus balkanization. To the wary humans, this fast growing alien population threatens to take over via demographics. To the newcomer species that finds itself in an alien world -- the more radical might feel they’re being bullied into assimilating, some feel the larger culture threatens to swallow them whole; to annihilate their identity.

So, the Tenctonese as Islamic immigrants.

More on Alien Nation. [Link]

SyFy seeks the next big space opera. [Link]

Now that the Syfy Channel has a new name, does that mean it's abandoning science-fiction fans? Syfy president David Howe assures us that's not the case, and promises a new space-opera, along the lines of Firefly or Farscape, by 2011.

We spoke to Howe at a special event this morning, celebrating the new spelling of the channel's name, and it's brand new slogan, "Imagine greater." After Howe reassured us the channel wasn't abandoning its core audience of science-fiction fans with its new rebranding, we got a chance to talk about the future of this new Syfy Channel.

Our first question was: What's going to replace Battlestar Galactica? Clearly, Caprica is not the same type of show as BSG, so what's in the pipeline to replace this much-loved space opera? Howe replied that, thanks to Mark Stern and the development team, not only is the channel aiming to greenlight a pilot in the next couple of months for a new series (mums the word on the title) but "we're actively looking into developing the next space opera hopefully for the next year or the year after."

So after Howe dropped this stunner, we hunted down Creative Director of Original Programming, Mark Stern, to find out more about the next big Syfy space opera. Will it have alien puppets?

SyFy is still a stupid name.