SCI FI U.K. Commissions First Series For Broadband Player

LONDON, August 14: The U.K.’s SCI FI channel has commissioned
TellyJuice to write and produce Legion of Fire, a superhero-themed mockumentary drama for its broadband player, SCI
FI Play.

The original series is the first for the online channel and
will premiere in the last quarter of 2007.

Starring British actor Ron Moody, the series follows a
ridiculously dysfunctional band of wannabe superheroes, the Legion of Fire
Superhero Club. Led by the 80-something founder Cecil Roper (a.k.a. “Flash
Harry” played by Moody), the group of six also includes “Snakebite,” a plastic-snake
wearing single mother; “The Deadly Nightshade,” an aging, plant-obsessed
teacher; and the electrically charged “Flex.” Less caught up with super
villains than super debts and spiraling recruitment numbers, the show spoofs
much of the superhero mania abounding in today’s pop culture.

The 25-minute documentary-style script was commissioned by
Ken Jones, the branded content manager for SCI FI U.K., and will be split into
episodic installments for streaming on SCI FI PLAY this fall. Executives at the
network hope to capitalize off of the recent success their other
superhero-themed shows are enjoying, including Heroes and Stan Lee’s Who Wants To Be A Superhero?, as well as build upon the fan-base established by a
spoof documentary filmed earlier this summer titled Major Victory:
Man Behind the Cape. The five-minute long
TellyJuice mockumentary premiered exclusively on SCI FI Play.

“The success we’ve enjoyed on-air and online with Heroes and Stan Lee’s Who Wants To Be A Superhero? shows that our audience has an appetite for
superhero capers,” commented Jones. “We felt that the theme was worthy of
further development and that it would suit the short-form format especially
well.”