It looks like a new challenger is approaching, though; Apple — which makes television shows now, in case you hadn’t heard — has given a straight-to-series order for a “space drama” show from Ronald D. Moore, who headed up the 2003 Battlestar: Galactica miniseries and the ensuing Syfy channel series. Per Deadline, the currently untitled show, written by Moore alongside Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi (Fargo), explores an alternate future where the global “space race” never truly ended (which probably means there will be some political unrest in play between America, Russia, and China).
Moore’s project marks the third television announcement from Apple since a series of talent acquisitions, where the tech giant poached big names from the content divisions of Amazon (Morgan Wandell) and Sony (Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, who are now heading Apple’s worldwide video programming department); in October, Apple announced it would be producing a reboot of Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi anthology series Amazing Stories with Bryan Fuller (Hannibal) in charge, and in November, we learned of an upcoming drama series about a morning news show, starring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston.
Moore, who cut his teeth as a writer for three different Star Trek television shows — The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager — has worked on several projects since, many of which went unfinished, including a live-action Star Wars series commissioned in 2011 by Lucasfilm and ABC. Moore worked together with Van Amburg and Erlicht to produce the unnamed series, which is jointly produced by Sony Pictures Television and Moore’s own Tall Ship Productions, as well as the well-received Starz series Outlander, for which the third season finale just aired on December 10.
There is no information regarding the production schedule for the show as of yet.
