Apple has announced plans to revive the 1980s science fiction anthology TV series Amazing Stories for their video streaming service.
Apple is close to a deal on a reboot of Amazing Stories to air as one of their first original programming attempts. Deadline reports that the company is in talks with Amblin TV and Universal TV on the reboot of the anthology series.
The original series, which was produced by Steven Spielberg, aired from 1985 to 1987 and has become a cult classic. The reboot was originally set up at NBC (who aired the original series) with Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, American Gods) writing back in 2015.
Do TV–and now tech company–executives even bother to research the properties they acquire for cynical cash grab reboots? Here we have a reboot of a 1980s TV series created by Stephen Spielberg based on the pulp-era anthology magazine helmed by Hugo Gernsback.
Not only is Apple diving headlong into the utter lack of originality that’s plaguing Hollywood, they seem hell bent on continuing the legacy publishing industry’s desecration of sci-fi. Because when I think “pulp anthology”, my mind immediately jumps to the guy who wrote Hannibal and American Gods.
Another emerging and baffling trend is TV and movie producers’ current fondness for rebooting 80s IPs that weren’t successful in the 80s either. Amazing Stories was critically acclaimed in its original run, but it underperformed in the ratings. This project looks like Blade Runner 2049 all over again.
The only question left to ask is the one Nathan Housley posed. How will Apple ruin Amazing Stories? They’ll over-explain the villains’ villainy with sob story backgrounds, shoehorn in Strong Female Characters™, emphasize “realism” over escapism, replace Western, Christian morality with the void of relativism, etc.
I’d be more inclined to forgive the Morlocks ruining science fiction if they didn’t always ruin stories in the same boring ways.
Enjoy the nostalgia before Apple ruins another tattered remnant of your childhood.
If you’re looking for science fiction in the genre-blending tradition of the pulps that’s unique and original, check out my award-winning Soul Cycle. Unlike too many SFF series these days, this one will actually be finished. Look for the The Ophian Rising, Soul Cycle Book IV later this fall.
Brian,
Interesting announcement given the context of the Weinstein sex scandal.
You accurately point out how Apple will ruin Amazing stories. Don't forget the No escapism obsession. However, I wonder if public disgust with the cultural Gramscians will force the writers and everyone involved in Amazing stories to pay attention to the audience. I know, I know but given the revelations of the Weinstein scandal and that Trump is siccing the FBI on the subject, just might either scare the gatekeepers enough to actually produce stories or there'll be so many indictments that previous oppressed writers, actors et al will emerge and make stories great again
xavier