Riverworld!! Did anyone see the original pilot? It was the biggest pile of sh*t its ever been my misfortune to witness. This is just such a BAD idea.

Don't you mean it's coming to 'Syfy', not 'Sci-fi' - Ha!

i remember the original Riverworld pilot! I LOVED IT!!! glad they are going to try again (especially with a DS9 writer), but the original one was great as well!

The original "Riverworld" SciFi film wasn't that great, but it was a lot better than their usual MOTW movies. 7 years is a long time to wait for development. I assume it will be a completely new film with no connection to the previous.

I'll watch Riverworld because I like Robert Wolfe's stuff (even though the Scifi channel has a history of treating the things he makes like yesterday's trash: Andromeda, Dresden Files). I'll watch it even though I know Riverworld is technically a remake of a semi-recent attempt at Riverworld also by the Scifi Channel.

The Phantom sounds like it has the potential to be very corny if not handled with care (and I really don't trust Scifi).

And as for Alice... Well, that sounds like they're trying to just recreate Tin Man already. Scyfy, Thy name is not orginality.

Even worse is the fact that Tim Burton is already working on an Alice In Wonderland movie, so this really just sounds like an attempt to cash in at a better director's expense by releasing a look-a-like product at the same time.

I saw the River world "B" movie a couple of times and found the concept promising but fear it might be difficult to make into a series but a GEEK in a basement with a good imagination may be able to make it work. This will be more Spiritualism than about anything else but it properly imagined a good story might be found to be told. I will record it when it is shown and give it a fair viewing. As for the Alice in Wonderland fable maybe that is where the new channel name came from. I will wait and see Phantom before I have an opinion but will hope for a GEEK in a basement to get it to work. No GEEK probable no hope for a good show.

The Riverworld books by Farmer are great (well, at least the first three), so I hope the miniseries is more like those than the previous attempt to adapt it. Wolfe has done some good work in the past so it has some promise. I just wish they would use the characters of Richard Francis Burton and Alice Liddell.

I get the impression that Alice is giong to be very Steampunk, much like Tin Man. I'll likely watch it but I'm more interested in the Burton version being made.

As for Riverworld, I fully trust Robert Wolfe.

I generally try to be constructive rather than harsh but the "Riverworld" described here and the book pretty much have nothing in common but a name and a world. This sounds awful, I don't know why SciFi buys the rights to things like The Dresden Files, Earthsea and other books with rich characterization and mythos only to get their sticky fingers all over it with gimmicky twists, convoluted storytelling and half-assed consultation of the source material.

It's a shame, really. I don't hate everything the SciFi channel puts out in way of original miniseries. I just hate what they do to a lot of the books they buy the rights of.

Court, I liked what they did with The Dresden Files. Sure it was different from the books but Harry Dresden, himself, was very much the same. In fact I preferred what they did with Bob. The Oscar Wilde-esque Ghost was a vast improvement over the talking skull. (As much as I love Jim Butcher there was a bit of a continuity error with his version of Bob that would have been glaringly obvious as a show). Certain things would have not translated well on TV at all (like the dinosaur in Dead Beat). I liked that the adventures of the show were completely unique and original. I just wish the show had lasted long enough to introduce it's own version of Thomas Raith. I love that character. I also like the direction the books are currently heading, taking more elements from the show in a sort of 'cross pollination'. I think it's very clever, what Jim Butcher is doing.

Earthsea... No comment. Just, no comment...

I did a little snooping and Robert Wolfe talks a bit about what he's doing with Riverworld on the exisle forum. I think they're only describing it so differently here is to try to distance themselves from the version they made a few years ago that they considered a failure.

"The story has been revamped for today's audiences."
Uh oh. That's NEVER good!

Take it with a grain of salt. They may just be trying to distance themselves from the version they made a few years ago. Never trust the spin in scifi advertising.

Whoops, if you were talking about the Alice story I think it's going to be sort of a sister to Tin Man. Probably another Steampunk offering. I love Steampunk, I just would rather they not try to recreate Tin Man so soon.

Ummm...why not just take up where the first Riverworld movie left off? I mean, I know it was a long time ago, but there's nothing stopping them from running the original one before the series starts. I was hoping to find out what happened after they started making their way up the river...

Someone high up at Scifi deemed the original one a failure and so they want to distance this version of Riverworld from it.

They won't use Richard Burton because they don't want to confuse us stoopid amerikan fanz. To us, he was just an actor.

Riverworld has such great potential... all they have to do is follow the real story until the second riverboat launches... they they have a 40 year journey where thay have to stop every so often to get lunch... and meet the locals. ... AFTER King John had visited with them...

Question for SciFi channel: Why do your scriptwriters and corporate pukes think they're smarter than Philip Jose Farmer?

A combat photojournalist? What a pathetic and transparent attempt to make a classic 'relevant' to your target audience - insular Americans with attention deficit disorder.

At least that is clearly your perception of your target audience.

Perhaps you should also paint an iPod into the Mona Lisa so we brainless couch potatoes can relate.

Not only do you remove the central character, the fascinating explorer Burton, but appear to have taken out every other character except Twain.

The original story is about a journey to find the source of the enormous planetary river, mirroring Burton's own quest for the Nile's source. By removing him you castrate the central rationale of the story - no character is more appropriate to the plot.

Had Galactica's Eick and Moore been at the helm of this second attempt (the first was garbage beyond belief), I would have been excited. Now I'm just mad. Wolfe, you should be ashamed, urinating on a classic.

Carnivale was excellent, so if the Knaufs are taking care of the Phantom, it might work out ok.

Alice, however, should be left alone unless its the Disney version, the Hallmark Channel version (which cut a bit out but was visually lovely and just enjoyable), or this new version by Tim Burton (sorry American McGee, no movie for you!) :-)

um, didn't Nick Willing already to an Alice in Wonderland series before. That was crap. Who the heck is in charge over at program approval at Sci Fi? Are they permanently stoned, or just STUPID?!