Sci-Fi Storm

It seems like today was deadline day on the pickups, and ABC swung the bat both ways. In my despondency over the loss of The Muppets and Castle, I was saved by the news that the network at least picked up Time After Time the series we’ve been reporting on based on the Karl Alexander novel and previously made into a 1979 feature film. We have high hopes for this one.

To no one’s surprise, ABC officially canceled Marvel’s Agent Carter after two seasons, given a nearly 50% drop in ratings and star Haley Atwell getting a new series pickup by ABC with Conviction.

Also on the plus side is that Supergirl will make the giant leap from CBS to sibling network The CW, rather than being sentenced to the Phantom Zone at least. There it will join three other Berlanti Productions-made superhero cousins: Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow. It will also join them physically, with production officially relocating to Vancouver, as we expected would happen. This is a cost-cutting movie that Warner Bros TV was already planning regardless which network picked it up. We expect there may be some additional cuts as well before production picks up. How this could also affect planned storylines remains to be seen as well. The CW also picked up three new series: Riverdale, based on the Archie Comics characters; No Tomorrow, about a straight-laced distribution center manager and a freewheeling man knocking off items on their bucket list because they believe the apocalypse is coming; and Frequency, a series adaptation of the 2000 feature film, with a female police detective who discovers she can communicate with her deceased father in the past via a ham radio.