I wish people would just stop going to Fox with good ideas.

That sounds like way too much going on for the show to have much of a chance at working it out well enough to make it watchable, but you never know, these could be really talented writers.
However, never mind that people keep going to Fox with them, why does Fox keep buying these scifi shows? Let a network that actually cares/will make an effort to keep it on the air handle it.

Sounds like the Joe Haldeman book "Old Twentieth" a bit.

Forget four episodes, Rob: Right now the network is only committing to airing the pilot/movie, and by "committing" I mean "dumping it on a Friday night in late June." I'm guessing that's the last we see of it.

You also forgot "air most of the episodes out of order and show the pilot as the series finale."

"I wish people would just stop going to Fox with good ideas."

Amen, brother!

And MattK: Your comment made me laugh. And weep. =[

As for the show, I will give it a chance. Even though I'm a bit sick of becoming attached to a show only to have Fox (or some other crappy network) cancel it, I can't seem to stop myself from doing it. This looks like it might be cool, as well. A couple of these scenes were pretty creepy. And Clea DuVall! She's great. They should have Bear McCreary do the music. He could do this and Caprica at the same time, right? Please?

Your final sentence had me cracking up with laughter -- because it's so true!

I think we found our new liveblog!

It seems they crammed in every reality TV, sci fi, prime time soap meme into one big mess that won't please fans of any of the above. I'm hoping that overly sympathetic Dr.-type pulls a full Bruce Dern and starts offing crew members one by one. I would watch that show.

They had me at "ameliorate."

Unfortunately, intelligent, thought provoking TV, on Fox means exactly what we expect.

People really ought to start taking genre stuff to NBC instead of Fox. Everyone knows you always go to the last-place network with this type of thing, and right now, Fox sure as heck ain't it.

That said, I like the idea of applying reality show conceits to sci-fi ideas. Todd Nuack's Wildguard comic, for instance, did a neat job of working with something like that.

Having all the VR stuff just seems like a way to cut the budget by having episodes take place in more conventional settings, however.

No, not messy at all... Remember, this is just the pilot, so there's quite a lot of set up... but I think this show is unique, intelligent and quite intriguing.

Very talented and likable cast, truly a shame if FOX doesn't pick this up.

One other thing: basing a show on a spaceflight out of our solar system in something approaching reality is going to hurt this. 12 people stuck in a ship for five years without any external influences? That's a recipe for getting real boring, real fast, without continual trips into VR to break up the tedium.

I mean, it could be neat to see the ship deteriorating around them (I think I read a Ben Bova novel once with that idea), but that's an idea for a movie, not a serialised TV show.

You know what would be more interesting? Doing a show back on Earth - a planet that knows it has 100 years of life left, and the politics and social effects of effectively giving the entire planet a death sentence. Sort of a sci-fi influenced West Wing. THAT show I'd pay attention to.

@stephen

I thought that was what "im a celebrity, get me out of here" was all about.

G_d! Am I the only one who thinks this looks awful and the exact opposite of drama? This is perhaps the worst idea I have ever heard for a show, and I've watched the pilot for Heat Vision and Jack!

1) There's only 12 people, with no non-bullshit way for adding characters.

2) Since there are only 12 people, death is probably not going to occur on any kind of regular basis, meaning there really is no sense of risk. It's like most prequals: Are the bad guys going to kill Anakin this week on the Clone Wars? No, dumbass, of course not.

3) Virtual reality is just about the most boring, bullshit technology to build a show around.

4) I know! If we make it an 'unreality show' that will give us an excuse to use all kinds of grainy shaky-cam shots from dramatic positions!

Really. I could do this all day. This is awful. I hope everyone can see it.

Actually, there is something that could actually make this watchable:

Skip the travel, and just show what happens when they get there.

THAT'S what I want to see, and I'm not waiting years to see it.

"THAT'S what I want to see, and I'm not waiting years to see it."

Earth 2 is out on DVD, you know. :)

Upon further thought, you know that episode of Doctor Who where they were on the Game Station and they all got stuck in Big Brother and The Weakest Link and such while trying to fight the evil aliens? That's basically what I'm picturing here but made to be SRS BSNS. Which is never a good thing.

Hell, I'm going for the outside bet and guessing that Fox pulls it in the middle of a commercial break, halfway through, replacing it with a Cheers rerun or something, then won't say why.

I'm still hopeful, even if, yes, the premise sounds retarded. What concerns me is Ronald Moore splitting his time between this and Caprica. Most likely they will both end up sucking.

I'm a Reality TV hater, and I hate to think that scripted shows will be mining the most retarded trend in 21st century entertainment. Why can't we all just forget reality TV exists, and TV stations can stop selling us this bullshit programming and pay people to generate actual entertainment.

The scene at table between the two ladies really caught the nauseous echoes of two unlikeable people whining and bitching at each other over a breakfast table. Congratulations, you've managed to capture perfectly the shittiest commonality that about fifty-billion other tv-shows use as filler between ad-breaks.

Even if the rest of the series is 110% awesome, that reality TV angle is going to kill it for me.

Well, this story line is how i thought the last matrix film would end...if anyone working on it had any sort of talent...and the whole resistance thing being nothing more than a safe program to keep them from going crazy. Neo, on his part being trained by the system to fight an actual alien invasion happening to the colony ships as they arrived close enough to one of the planets...and yes the earth was destroyed like in the films. sigh...i had too high expectations for revolutions.

This looks like a show with potentially good concepts that's going to be screwed not because it's on Fox, but because Moore is incapable of writing his shows past the first few episodes. He admits to having winged it completely after he ran out of material from BSG:TOS and ultimately it screwed up. Having to write a new show completely from scratch? I don't see it happening.

The only positive thing I can say about this is that it at least affirms to me that SOMEONE else saw and enjoyed Danny Boyle's Sunshine.

That was the best Sci Fi movie I've seen in a long long time.

This however looks like crap and I can't even imagine why Fox green lit it.

The only positive thing I can say about this is that it at least affirms to me that SOMEONE else saw and enjoyed Danny Boyle's Sunshine.

That was the best Sci Fi movie I've seen in a long long time.

This however looks like crap and I can't even imagine why Fox green lit it.

I think that's the amazing thing about Fox, not that they keep cancelling these shows... but that they ever green light them to begin with!