I am – Hercules!!
If you’ve been wondering why Syfy keeps grinding out swill like “MegaShark Vs. Giant Octopus,” “Flash Gordon” and “Alice” instead of turning its acclaimed 2006 “The Lost Room” miniseries into an ongoing franchise, this week’s Monday conference call with Syfy president Dave Howe may shed some light:
ECLIPSE MAGAZINE EDITORIAL DIRECTOR MICHELLE ALEXANDRIA: Just had a quick question regarding the Lost Room and it’s one of my favorite shows that a few years ago. And the way it ended it seemed like there was talk about a TV spinoff, whatever happened to that?
SYFY PRESDIENT DAVE HOWE: I missed the title actually - what was the show?
ALEXANDRIA: It’s the Lost Room.
HOWE: The Lost Room. Yeah, we did have it in - that’s a very good question actually because I haven't heard anything about the Lost Room for a while. I know we tried to develop it as a series but I think we struggled to close the deal on it.
Let me just - I'm just flicking through the development report now. Yeah, I don't think it’s in development. No it’s not. I think it was a concept. It’s interesting actually. It was a concept that we really loved. And if I'm honest I think we've done it better in Warehouse 13. If you look at...
ALEXANDRIA: Right.
HOWE: ... the concept of Warehouse 13 which is objects with special powers I think Warehouse 13 does a, you know, does a better version of the Lost Room from a series perspective.
I think the challenge that we had with Lost Room is it was very difficult as a concept even though we loved it to kind of market it in one sentence or less because it was somewhat, you know, complicated to just explain to everybody there was this kind of, you know, missing room and a missing key etcetera, etcetera.
And the thing about the objects was that their arbitrary powers were also problematic. The fact that, you know, you picked up an alarm clock and you had no idea what it would actually do. I think the success of Warehouse 13 is we've tried to give all of the objects a real kind of mythology and a history that actually stacks up that makes some sense either historically or scientifically, etcetera.
And I think that’s why Warehouse 13 works. And I think that’s probably why the Lost Room didn't work for us. It was one of our lowest rated miniseries ever. And I think that’s pretty much - I think answers your question.
Find Alexandria’s Eclipse bullet points on the conference call here.
Find a complete transcript of the Monday conference call, which also suggests Syfy has something called “Sharktopus” on the fast-track, here.
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