I’d love to see two of my favourite childhood shows merged into one gritty drama noir. I give you ‘The Gemini Man from Atlantis’. Our hero is an amphibious sometimes invisible secret agent, with a penchant for voyeurism which often distracts him from the mission in hand.
This.
LotL was my favorite show when I was a kid, and the movie version that Will Ferrel crapped out was a massive disappointment. Done right, LotL could be some serious sci-fi.
Space: 1999, though of course without the ridiculous initiating action and dated title.
Keep the over-sized zippers, though.
LMAO @ “Catweazle” as a suggestion.
How about a gritty A-Team? Where they are accused of a crime THEY DID commit. And they could be straight-up mercenaries who work for whoever pays more.
However, I like the look of the new cheesy-fun movie too.
I used to love The Equalizer, but it would be so cheesy in comparison today. I’d love to see what they’d do with it now.
And I always thought the movie *Sneakers *would make an interesting series.
And there was a pilot for a TV series called The Renegades about a group of street gang members who were recruited by the cops that had potential.
There’s another show that I used to watch on Saturday afternoons sometimes - I think it was Canadian. It was about a group of mutants who had special powers - their leader was a scientist who had once worked towards killing them and then had had a “come to jesus” moment - and was now fighting against his former partner - who was this really pale dude. I wish I could think of the name of it. I always thought it was good fun. I can see all the faces, but none of them were really big named actors.
The main scientist guy had been on several lifetime movies as kinda the bad husband - and the pale guy had a really bad, micro-thin nose job - like it had disintegrated.
One of the things that a BSG type show needs is a big story arc. Space 1999 never had this, but its predecessor, UFO did. How about …
Season 1
Invasion. The UFO invasion threat is understood. SHADO is set up. Who funds SHADO, why is its existence kept secret, do moon ladies still wear purple wigs how do its early missions go (not well probably)?
Season 2
Stalemate. With its defenses in place, Earth can begin to even the score. A few victories means that SHADO can begin to investigate where the aliens came from and what they want with Earth.
Season 3
Fightback
Regardless of how many UFOs are destroyed, they keep coming to Earth to steal our women etc. An Armada is assembled and sets off to try and find the UFO homeworld. Hijinks, sabotage etc. ensue.
Season 4
Invasion. The SHADO fleet reaches the UFO homeworld. Will diplomacy win the day or will there be a giant laser space battle?
It’s been a long time since 1976 for me: were they not even trying to get back to Earth?
They just drifted in space fighting the monster of the week
My husband and I were talking about gritty reboots just this last weekend and were playing with how to restart “Kung Fu”. Eventually it turned into a potentially interesting mash-up with “Star Wars”: the series follows Obi-Wan (now Ben) Kenobi after the third prequel as he wanders around various non-Empire frontier planets trying to meditate and find peace, but ultimately being forced once per episode to deliver a well-deserved ass-kicking. Overall story arc has to do with dealing with survivor guilt, his part in the deaths of so many Jedi, and seeking a return to a more personal monk-like relationship with the Force. With ass-kicking.
Daddy sure as hell better be mad at somebody!
I want him to kick some ass!
The show I was thinking of was Mutant X.
I’d watch this.
Space: 1999
I’d call it: Space 2499.
In the year 2499, a huge nuclear waste dump is constructed on the south end of the far side of the moon. Unfortunately, just above an extremely large, undiscovered crashed alien vessel with some form of Jump drive.
Due to leakage and blah, blah, blah, some kind of intermittent large scale reaction occurs that is somehow connected to the alien jump drive and causes it to basically overload on a scale large enough to throw the entire moon several light years in a random direction.
There is not one, but several colonies on the moon, ranging from a medium sized, UN controlled base, to almost a dozen smaller national bases (US, UK, EU, Russian, Chinese, Indian, Iranian, Brazilian, Japanese, African Union, Arab League). As the moon moves through space, it encounters a number of worlds and situations, which are primarily dealt with by the American base (it being an American TV show, this has to follow), which is the only base to have operational plasma drive spacecraft capable of extended journeys away from the moon. (Either that, or one or two others do, but they are lost over the course of the series or not risked for political reasons, or blah blah blah, keeping the focus on the Americans, and possibly the Brits.)
The other tale being the constant attempts at exploring the massive alien craft, the politics involved and the sabotage, subterfuge and outright conflicts between the various parties to gain the advanced knowledge necessary to GET HOME.
The Aliens who made this technology should NEVER be encountered, or at best, only hints of their long dead empire, all so ancient as to be almost beyond salvage. There should only be one to three other alien races, hopefully NONE of which are Humanoid, all of which should be only sparingly encountered. The focus remains on the political dynamics of the Moon and the chance to GET HOME.
Chimera—love it. I wonder how much time dilation would figure into the plot, depending on the moon’s speed. Not only do they want to get home, they want to do it before everyone they know back home has died.
And we already have a theme song! 
Here’s one that has potential. Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.
I seem to recall a bit in the early part of the Buck Rogers series where they are out in the ruins of Old Chicago (not to be confused with the restaurant chain) and are set upon by wild men or mutants, who are pretty much killed and driven off without concern.
If they were to do the series again, I’d like to see a Buck Rogers with a bit more 21st Century Liberal sentiments, being absolutely shocked and appalled that there are HUMANS out there who are simply being cast off and treated as animals and who points out that the so-called “civilized” society he has fallen into is nothing of the kind, but is rather headed down the entire Morlock/Eloi slope.
Me personally, I’d point out that they are hiding in their Ivory Towers playing at being civilized and making no effort to raise up the entire Human race and repair the damage done to world they inherited.
In which case maybe you have an extended sub-plot of Buck trying to make peaceful contact with these outcasts and provide them with help and medicine. In which case I would sincerely hope that it would not turn into an Avatar-esque “noble savage” thing or an “honorable white man” thing and instead being a running battle of mistrust and distance that does NOT get resolved during the entire length of the show.
Both of your ideas are good, Chimera, but how do you put in the whole attractive women and sexual dynamic? That was the first thing I noticed about New BSG, at least.
I’d make suggestions on the above, but all my ideas sound like retreading BSG, like a mutant infiltrator and/or a more humanoid female Twiki. With Space 2499, all I can come up with is a class of women trying to sleep their way into power that turn out to have known about the spaceship and wanted this to happen.
With Space 2499, it would be a couple of very beautiful women in positions of power combined with a distinct shortage of women in the colonies. Industrial Colonies, which is all there is likely to be on the Moon = Lots of men, few women.
So like; The Russian base is small mining operation whose sole key benefit to the collective is their possession of large scale rail gun that they had been using to launch blocks of refined metal into Earth Orbit for collection by orbital ferries. Their pre-disruption population was 60, that being 57 men and 3 women. Post-disruption, their population is 42, being all male. Now obviously, they have a problem. But in the long run, their rail gun is a potential defensive weapon for the Moon as a whole, and they are mining some rare Earth metals that are desperately needed if they ever hope to manufacture more electronics in order to GET HOME, and may well need for modifying the alien machinery. (Which again, no one should know jack shit about, so no secret cabals who “knew all about it”)
So, if you end up with a Male/Female ratio of something like 80/20 or even 70/30 post-disruption, there is obviously going to be a huge shortage of female companionship, and the survival of the remaining females is critical to the long term survival of this group of Humans should they fail to GET HOME.
Now throw in a couple of really attractive women who KNOW that this gives them power over a lot of horny men and are ruthless and manipulative enough to take advantage of it despite the very real political and societal issues it would cause, and you have a lot of sexual tension and dynamics.
I like this.
Can we make the “wild men” also carry some nice infectious diseases?