Tradecraft: And Another Fox Spy Script Order....

Well, hopefully one of these sticks eventually! Fox seems, rightly, determined to have a spy series on the air again. (24 was a huge hit for the network for eight seasons, but they haven't had another spy show since.) The latest candidate (following last week's order of Anonymous), according to Deadline, is The Prodegy, from Life creator Rand Ravich. (I'm talking about the acclaimed 2007 TV series Life, which starred a pre-Homeland Damian Lewis, not equating Ravich to one of Ridley Scott's life-creating "engineers!") According to the trade blog, The Prodigy "centers on a young CIA officer who has to infiltrate the New York City field office of the FBI on the hunt for agents who are working with enemies of the U.S." I like that log line, and personally, this sounds to me like the most interesting of Fox's three espionage-oriented script orders (though of course that's hard to tell from single sentence synopses). I love inter-agency bickering in spy fiction, and this set-up would seem to provide for a lot of it. Ravich will pen the pilot, and produce along with Far Shariat. Also contending for a slot on Fox's line-up are the spy series Anonymous and an untitled one from Howard Gordon and Shaun Cassidy. Is there room on the schedule for more than one espionage show? I sure think so...