Syfy Returns to Event Series, Orders Six-Hour Space Opera (Exclusive)
The cable network, which hasn't aired a miniseries since 2009, is eying a November launch for "Ascension" -- a thriller about a murder aboard a 100-year voyage from Earth.
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Part Battlestar and part Downton Abbey, Ascension takes place on a century-long space shuttle journey, where hundreds of men, women and children left Earth behind at the start of the Cold War. Nearly 50 years after their covert 1963 mission launched with the intention of colonizing a new world, a young woman is mysteriously murdered, prompting the population to question the nature of the mission as they near the point of no return.
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It has been since 2009’s Alice that Syfy aired a miniseries. And like Battlestar before it, Syfy is keeping its options open for Ascension to serve as a jumping-off point for a potential TV series. Howe and new executive vp original content Bill McGoldrick recently spoke with THR about plans for the network, which include a big push back into the miniseries space and a desire to launch a new space opera.
“We want to be the best science-fiction channel that we possibly can, and in some respects, that means going back to the more traditional sci-fi/fantasy that fans often say they feel we’ve exited,” Howe said. “We’re going to occupy that space in a way we haven’t for the past few years.”
