Sci Fi Channel Upfront, Caprica Picked Up For Pilot

Battlestar Galactica may be ending its run next year, but the show will live on with Caprica. At its upfront presentation Tuesday in New York, Sci Fi Channel announced that it has picked a two-hour back-door pilot for the prequel, which had been in development for two years. Caprica, which is set 50 years before the events in the departing Battlestar Galactica series, will begin production in the spring. As for Galactica, the series’ final-season premiere will debut online nine hours before it airs on TV.

Sci Fi also has given the go-ahead to True Believer, a two-hour back-door pilot created by Rosario Dawson and David Atchinson – who co-wrote the comic book series Occult Crimes Task Force – about a comic book enthusiast who hires a former superhero to teach him about crime fighting. It joins The Stranded, a two-hour pilot of a Sci Fi/Virgin Comics joint venture. The network also plans an Alice in Wonderland-based six-hour miniseries titled Alice, from RHI Entertainment. A two-hour comedy-drama pilot, Deputized, follows a man who fights crime around the galaxy after getting super powers.

Sci Fi’s reality slate includes Estate of Panic, an Endemol USA series about seven people who compete to find millions of dollars at an estate, and Idiot Box Productions’ Brain Trust, in which a group of geniuses bands together to solve problems. The channel also announced new seasons of Scare Tactics, now hosted by 30 Rock’s Tracy Morgan; Mind Control With Derren Brown; and Ghost Hunters International. And a May 18 special by NBC News correspondent Lester Holt will feature Mystery of the Crystal Skulls, about the real-life search for what the latest Indiana Jones movie is based upon.