Don't Call It Science Fiction

DAVE ITZKOFF- New York Times: "SOMETIMES, when devoted fans of fantasy and science-fiction entertainment - for economy's sake, let's just call them geeks - get together, they like to debate whether a particular red-caped superhero could best a certain green-skinned goliath in combat. Or whether a scenery-chewing starship captain was superior to his Shakespeare-quoting successor. But on occasion they want to talk about contingency planners.

"There's all these contingency plans that the government orders, for the most bizarre things that would never happen," said the screenwriter David S. Goyer, sounding less like the man who was a co-writer of "Batman Begins" and more like an excitable conspiracy theorist. "Our own government has a plan for what would happen if we made contact with aliens. I tried to get it, and it's all top secret, of course."

Despite the setback, Mr. Goyer continued to discuss his obsession with other open-minded geeks, including his next-door neighbor on the Warner Brothers lot, the producer David Heyman, who is best known for bringing J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" novels to the screen. And though their conversations on the subject could have resulted in many happily wasted man-hours, they ultimately yielded a television series.

The new CBS drama "Threshold," which is broadcast on Fridays at 9 p.m., follows the adventures of a contingency planner (played by Carla Gugino) and her ad hoc group of military and scientific specialists (including Brian Van Holt, Charles S. Dutton and Peter Dinklage) as they chase a malevolent alien life form that is spreading across the Earth.

Behind the scenes, "Threshold" has brought together a team with a decidedly different area of expertise: Mr. Heyman, Mr. Goyer and Brannon Braga, a veteran writer and producer of the "Star Trek" movies and television shows.

"We're like the Super Friends," Mr. Braga said, invoking the old Hanna-Barbera superhero cartoon. "We're a highly animated group."

Of the three, Mr. Goyer - a compact, sinewy man with a goatee and colorful tattoos running up his forearms - has the most experience with costumed crime-fighters. Starting with his script for "Blade," the 1998 film starring Wesley Snipes as the stylish vampire hunter from Marvel Comics, Mr. Goyer has become Hollywood's go-to guy for comic-book adaptations. In addition to "Batman Begins" and three "Blade" movies, he has written forthcoming films based on "The Flash" and "Ghost Rider."

The bespectacled, floppy-haired Mr. Braga hails from a decidedly different quadrant of the geek universe. He started out as an intern on the television show "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in 1990 and spent several months with Mr. Goyer expanding the idea for "Threshold" into a full-fledged television pitch.

"We wanted the science fiction to be accessible, that it not be like 'Star Trek,' that it not be technical, and everything has to be explained," Mr. Braga said in his office on the Paramount lot during a joint interview with Mr. Goyer. "We wanted it to be much scarier in the way it's presented."

Mr. Heyman, who splits his time between his Los Angeles office and his base of operations in London, may be the odd man out among "Threshold's" executive producers: his association with the fencing team at Harvard, where he was twice an all-American in the 1980's, is perhaps the geekiest entry on his résumé. But while Mr. Heyman does not consider himself a die-hard enthusiast of science fiction or fantasy works, he said he could identify with their underlying themes. "I'm drawn to stories about outsiders," he said in a telephone interview, en route to a scoring session for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." "I'm interested in people on the fringe, ordinary people who have to deal with extraordinary things."

Like his colleagues, Mr. Heyman was just as adamant that "Threshold's" paranormal elements be tempered with a healthy dose of reality. "It's all played real and true, and it's not played as science fiction," he said. "It's played as science fact."

Sure enough, the extraterrestrial being pursued by the "Threshold" team isn't a bug-eyed little green man, but rather a mysterious signal that propagates itself through everyday technology - radios, computers, MP3 players - and creates chaos wherever it turns up. Were it stripped of this one otherworldly component, "Threshold," with its emphasis on forensic investigations and the interpersonal dynamics of its cast, could pass for another spinoff of "CSI."

And that, say "Threshold's" creators, is partly the point: for a contemporary sci-fi series to find a place on a network's schedule, it can't look too much like a sci-fi series. "There haven't been an enormous number of successful science-fiction shows on prime-time network television," Mr. Braga said. "You've got your 'X-Files' and now 'Lost,' which is arguably science fiction, though one could say it's something else."

While shows like "Battlestar Galactica" have more recently found success on basic cable, he said, "the sci-fi shows that are successful on cable have relatively small audiences. We want to reach a big audience."

At the same time, "Threshold" is just one of several new network series to offer varying degrees of science fiction or fantasy cloaked in real-world scenarios, including NBC's "Surface," ABC's "Invasion" and WB's "Supernatural." This trend, say the producers of "Threshold," is partly the result of viewers' reawakened appetite for escapist fare in an age of global terrorism. "It's unexplained phenomena which cause a threat to mankind, and that threat is not contained to one area," Mr. Heyman said. "It can happen any time, any place, to anyone. It's something people can really relate to right now."

But shows like "Threshold" may also reflect the networks' belated appreciation of the value of genre entertainment. "Have you seen the box office numbers on 'War of the Worlds,' by the way?" asked a "Threshold" co-star, Brett Spiner, who played the android Data on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." "I don't think the networks are in the business of doing things people aren't going to watch. I think they sniff some dollars here."

For all the conventions that "Threshold" is trying to upend, there was one its creators simply could not avoid: Comic-Con International in San Diego, where each July, geek consumers and industry members convene to trade memorabilia and learn about new projects. On hand to introduce "Threshold" to a potentially receptive demographic, the show's producers also came face to face with some of their most worshipful admirers. "At an autograph signing," Mr. Goyer said, "one guy came up and literally had tears in his eyes, and said, 'Thank you for saving him.' And I said, 'Who?' And he said, 'Batman.' Then he asked me to sign his Bat-a-Rang."

For Mr. Braga, who had just wrapped the final season of "Star Trek: Enterprise," the convention appearance was more bittersweet. "A guy came up to me," he recalled, "and said: 'Don't listen to what they say, Mr. Braga. You are a good writer.' "