CBS ordered up a batch of pilots early this year, one of which was a new take on Mary Shelley’s legendary story, Frankenstein. The series comes from Jason Tracey, “Elementary” creator Rob Doherty, and CBS TV Studios, and we’ve learned today (via Deadline) that the title of the potential series is “Alive.“ Additionally, Ryan Phillippe is now set to lead the pilot.
Katrina Law, Aaron Staton and Saidah Arrika Ekulona will also star.
“Frankenstein” centers on a San Francisco homicide detective who’s mysteriously brought back to life after being killed in the line of duty.
“As he resumes his old life and he and his wife realize he isn’t the same person he used to be, they zero in on the strange man behind his resurrection – Dr. Victor Frankenstein.”
Phillippe’s Escher, a San Francisco police investigator, was presumed dead after an attack and destructive fire at his home. Six months later, he shockingly reappears and is reunited with his wife, Elizabeth. But something has changed. A shadow has fallen across his sunny disposition, and he’s haunted by visions of the case he was working on when he died. He and Elizabeth will seek answers about who shot and abducted him, and what was done to him.
Law’s Elizabeth Lavenza, a pathologist/medical examiner, is stunned when her husband returns from the dead, and though she’s thrilled to have him back, she knows there’s a secret behind his disappearance, his reappearance and his new personality – and she thinks she knows exactly who’s responsible.
Staton’s Victor Frankenstein is a brilliant, slightly odd and driven – perhaps obsessed – scientist who is working on a secret, cutting-edge project. On the run from an ethics board in China, Victor is back in the U.S., where he works in a lab and is very involved in whatever it is that’s going on with Escher. He’s also Escher’s wife’s ex.
Uta Briesewitz (“Westworld”) will be directing the pilot.
