Since the end of Battlestar Galactica, Syfy has had a tough time finding a new flagship show. Continuing BSG in the form of Caprica failed, and Stargate Universe died around the same time. Defiance seemed a possible successor, but it bit the dust last year, and it’s only recently that the heir apparent came to be in the form of The Expanse. In between came Alphas, a show about people with superpowers that were pretty toned down compared to the heroes dominating the big screen at the time. And much like SGU, Alphas was canceled in its second season on a notorious cliffhanger. I’ll be honest; I never was much of a fan, getting bored with it after the first two episodes, but I’m not one to turn down a special request if I can fulfill it (especially since I’m not always able to). So here’s what I found, from the mouths of the writers and cast, on the lost future of Alphas.

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One of the unique things about TV is that is often has a long development process, but once something is committed to film, it’s almost certainly set in stone, so to speak. The first episode is almost always the pilot–that first proof-of-concept episode that’s made to sell the network on the idea. There are also spinoffs, which often get a strong upfront order based on the power of the parent show’s name alone (Like Star Trek Voyager, or Doctor Who‘s new spinoff, Class).

But some shows end up taking a rather roundabout approach to get to air; an online video, or a testbed short film is shown to the public without commitments. Viewers react positively, and boom! A show is born. Here are 4 shows that followed an unusual path through the development pipeline, and the 4 earliest SF prototypes that led to their creation.

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Something different comes our way this week–as I’m running low on TV shows I can actually scrape up some research on, I thought it might interest some of my newfound readers to learn the alternate paths the story of my novel, The Arcology, could have taken. It went through a lot of revisions, some of them radically different. It seemed like a better way to present this was in the list format, so why not do it that way? I swear I’m not just trying to kill 3 birds with one stone…

Buckle in as we move through some possible versions of The Arcology and I give a bit of an idea as to why I didn’t go with them.

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Yet another show coming to us by special request, Defying Gravity was basically doomed from day 1 due to network mismanagement and a (frankly baffling) mix of genres that failed to find an audience. However, the show’s creator, James Parriott, had plotted out several seasons worth of material that would’ve been covered in subsequent seasons, and as is so often the case, what was coming was far more interesting than what we saw. The answers to Beta, Gamma, and the fates of these horrifically incompetent and immature characters were left hanging when the show was canceled. Here’s what I’ve found for Defying Gravity season 2 and beyond.

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As we’ve done once before, instead of a season for a show that was canceled, this month we’re going to look at the plans for a series that never actually materialized at all. In this case, we’re looking at the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie, starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor. The series was a co-production that aired on Fox, and was passed on for really stupid reasons that we’ll not get into here. But, given that it was essentially a pilot movie that was intended to lead into a full continuation of the classic BBC Doctor Who, there were quite a lot of plans as to where the show would’ve gone and what it might have included. How does it stack up to the eventual modern Doctor Who? Let’s find out.

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Earlier this month I introduced Max Headroom, the fictional show starring the computerized celebrity of the same name. If you’ve read that you know I had a pretty high opinion of the series itself, a fine example of 80’s cyberpunk on its own and one of the only TV programs to venture into that territory at the time. However, it seemed the world wasn’t quite ready for the dystopian adventures of Max, and the show met with cancellation after two exceptionally short seasons. Production was still in full swing at the time, though, so what did we miss out on by this abrupt ending? or Max Headroom season 3? And hell, even in spite of the cancellation, their plans for Max’s world weren’t done–a Max Headroom theatrical movie, anyone?

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So last week I introduced Earth 2 in the Primer, a series about colonizing an alien world with a heavy dose of environmentalism mixed in. Earth 2 had a strong start in the ratings but gradually crashed; the production company, however, wasn’t quite ready to cancel it yet, and decided to investigate the possibility of a retool first. With a change in showrunners, an Earth 2 season 2 continuation was pitched. While it ultimately didn’t get that renewal, we do have the leaked plans for what that second season pitch looked like. Big changes were certainly in store, but were they good ones?

Needless to say, a few spoilers for season 1 follow.

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This month’s What Could Have Been comes as a special request. The Tomorrow People was a 2013 series about a group of people who developed superpowers (the eponymous Tomorrow People), who are being hunted down by a group called Ultra. It was a CW series, and as such has more of a YA bent to it than what we’ve mostly covered so far on the site. It was also a remake of a 1970s British sci-fi series, one that actually lasted quite a while (8 seasons). The modern incarnation wasn’t so lucky and got canceled after its first. Now, I should admit I’ve never actually watched The Tomorrow People myself, so if there are any silly errors you’ll have to forgive me. But, I was able to dig up a little info on where the series would have gone, and it sounds like it would’ve been quite the shakeup. Without further ado, let’s look at The Tomorrow People season 2 that could have been.

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When you’re shooting a TV series or a film, sometimes real life gets in the way, and forces some changes to the plot. This is often expensive or problematic, so they’ll try to avoid it as much as possible (for example, giving Dr. Crusher and B’elanna Torres new oversized coats to hide their actresses’ pregnancies when the characters weren’t). But when it comes down to it, reality can force your hand–either due to budget reasons, or sudden illnesses or deaths, or scheduling conflicts, or even censorship, the original plan just flat out isn’t possible any more. Something new has to be made up, and fast. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, sure, but without those complications, we’d have missed out on some classic moments. So, let’s celebrate the good that came out of the bad by looking at these, 4 great scenes that nearly didn’t happen.

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A proposed Enterprise redesign for another undeveloped movie, by Ralph McQuarrie of Star Wars fame.

We’re going to try something new this month. Instead of a season for a show that was canceled, it’s going to be a look at the plans for a series that never actually materialized at all. Hopefully it’s just as popular, as I’ve got a few more of these we can examine in the future, and let’s face it–there are a lot of canceled shows, but not all of them had enough planning and forethought put into them that they could fill out a full article. And what better place to start out than in the franchise that featured in the first “What Could Have Been?” That’s right, we’re looking at a Star Trek series that never got produced: a continuation of the original series, with new characters and an upgraded ship called Star Trek: Phase II.

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