By David Wharton | 7 years ago

We’ve had some good luck of late when it comes to imported Canadian science fiction TV. I’m talking about Continuum, the time-traveling cop show starring Rachel Nichols which has become much better than we were expecting. Now there’s another intriguing science fiction project in the works up north, and we’re going to keep our fingers crossed that it makes its way down to the States before too long. Even better, this one — called Echoes — is being run by a Stargate veteran, so you ‘gaters biding your time until the franchise rises from the ashes will have something to look forward to in the meantime.

The Hollywood Reporter reveals that writer Carl Binder has been hired to write the pilot for the Canadian sci-fi series Echoes. He will also be the showrunner for the series. Binder worked on all three Stargate TV spinoffs, but he’s actually been in the TV game much longer that, stretching back to early work on the Friday the 13th TV series and even the short-lived 1990 War of the Worlds show. In the aftermath of Stargate Universe’s demise, he served as a writer and consultant on Cinemax’s series adaptation of the Transporter movies.

Set in the year 2021, Echoes “follows the journey of Sonya, a young woman trying to survive after two warring extra-terrestrial species bring their intergalactic battle to Earth.” Talk about lousy luck. We haven’t even managed an interstellar voyage yet and poof, a bunch of alien jerks decide to sort their shit out on our front lawn.

The show was created by Ken Kabatoff, Andrew Karr, Mark Savela and Craig Van Den Biggelaar, and is being developed by Don Carmody Television. That’s the production company founded by the aforementioned Don Carmody, Oscar-winning producer of Chicago.

Carmody Television executive vice president David Cormican says:

With Carl (Binder)’s mastery of the genre and one of the best sci-fi visual effects teams on the planet, we hope to bring the world and aliens of Echoes to life for the millions of fans of the genre the world over.

Echoes definitely sounds like it has potential. We’ve seen lots of stories where aliens invade or try to exterminate us (Independence Day), and we’ve seen lots of stories where aliens are up to sneaky covert activities here on Earth (V, X-Files), but the twist of us being literally caught in the middle of two warring extraterrestrial factions should be fun. Once it finds a Canadian network home, here’s hoping Syfy or somebody arranges to air it down here as well. (Or at least get it up on Netflix at some point.)