SciFiWire, the web arm of The Sci Fi Channel, is dishing out new concept artwork from the cable net’s upcoming mini-series (aka backdoor pilot for a regular TV series) Riverworld, based on Philip Jose Farmer’s series of novels. I still remember the other backdoor pilot they did a few years back, starring Brad Johnson, actually. This new one looks entirely different, though.
In the new Riverworld, Battlestar Galactica and Dollhouse’s Tahmoh Penikett will play Matt Ellman, an American war reporter who is killed, along with his fiancee Jessie (Smallville’s Laura Vandervoort) by a suicide bomber. They awaken in separate locations, but on the same mysterious world where everyone who has ever lived on Earth seems to have been “reborn” along the banks of a seemingly endless river.
Matt’s quest to locate his beloved Jessie is joined by 13th-century female samurai warrior Tomoe (Jeananne Goossen) and the famous American raconteur Sam “Mark Twain” Clemens (Mark Deklin). Alan Cumming will guest-star in the mini-series as The Caretaker.
