The FBI to come on your screen
By fred | August 8, 2007
Fox already has a few series involving cops and all kind of special agents but there’s still looking for more. They now have a new project on they way, for which they’re working on with no other than the actual Federal Bureau of Investigation itself.
This isn’t a first, but the last time it happened was for the 1965 ABC show called The F.B.I. which ran up to 1974. Since then, the bureau has obviously evolved enormously, getting involved with new areas such as terrorism and new, “hi-tech” crimes ; Yet the agency never worked on a TV series, though it had been approached to get involved a few times before, but unlike this time it was always late in the development of the show.
But the FBI had been looking for a primetime vehicle to reflect those new realities for a couple of years already, as FBI’s assistant director public affairs John Miller explained, “We were looking to find someone that would do an FBI show based on real events, cases and characters that looked a little bit more like the real FBI than the shows that are on now, because reality is a lot more interesting than fiction.”
Of course you can doubt that it’s actually interesting in a way that works for TV shows as well, but to ensure it will be Fox as teamed up with Imagine Television for this new series.
Truth be told, this new show, simply called The FBI as well (for now), actually came from the mind of Imagine’s Brian Grazer, who personally pitched it to Fox Entertainment president Kevin Reilly. Evidently Reilly liked it, as it already landed a series commitment.
“The FBI is one of those arenas that has been developed many times, but it hasn’t been cracked in decades. The hallmark of Imagine’s brand has been taking pretty populous arenas and bringing them to life in a unique way, and we believe they will find a way to do that with the FBI” told Reilly.
Miller met with a number of producers before, looking for a project that would suit them, until meeting with Grazer, who had been thinking about doing a series about public servants who put their lives on the line since producing 1991 Backdraft.
Grazer and Imagine experience, backed up with the help of the Bureau, the show might turn into something pretty interesting, although FBI involvement is never to reflect to actual truth, but a promotional way to better their public image.
That said, and with an early starting collaboration, the result could be worth watching. “We sought to reverse-engineer the process – to start with what the FBI really does as opposed to people coming up with an interesting television show and hammering us into it“, told Miller.
Unlike many new series these days, or Fox’s 24, the show will not be serialized. “It will be strongly character driven, and the procedural part of it will be secondary to the characters. While 24 is heightened reality, this would be realistic series that would have the intensity and realism of a Ridley Scott movie“, told Grazer.
The new series is said to follow Iraq war veteran Michael Cavanaugh as he is appointed as new head of the FBI’s Critical Incidents Response Group, a division involved in various different cases, ranging from kidnappings to evidence collection to hostage negotiations.
Taylor said one inspiration for Cavanaugh is John O’Neill, who was an interesting model of fascinating flawed hero, courageous but not without sins. O’Neill is the FBI agent who warned about Al-Qaeda and quit in frustration only to eventually die on the first day of his next job, as World Trade Center’s new security director.
Taylor is an executive producer with Grazer and David Nevins, Chap Taylor is a writer, 20th Century Fox TV is producing.
