FOX on 'Quest' for New Kind of Reality


Several years ago, a couple of heavyweight producers tried to launch reality shows that would send a person into space. Now, FOX has teamed up with a few more big names to try the next best thing.

The network has ordered up a series called "XQuest" that will take groups of people with no special training to live in "biocrafts" that simulate the weightless conditions of living in space. The contestants will live in the crafts for a month, having no contact with the outside world, save for a limited amount of communication with "mission control."

"We're all extremely excited," FOX Entertainment president Peter Ligouri said Thursday (July 28) at the Television Critics Association press tour. "... We hope it's the next level of where unscripted programming can go."

"XQuest," whose title will likely change once the specific mission is worked out, comes from Imagine Entertainment ("Apollo 13," "24") and Alexander Seropian, creator of the videogame "Halo." Imagine's Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and David Nevins will executive produce with Seropian and Jim Banister, his partner in Spectrum MediaWorks.

The show is still quite a ways off. FOX says pre-production, including the building of the biocrafts, will take as much as a year, and the show will also incorporate a number of CGI effects after the fact. The teams will compete on specific missions, gradually eliminating players until a winner is determined.

Because it's an Earth-based simulation, "XQuest" won't have to deal with the difficulties of actual space travel, which derailed two other space shows a few years ago. NBC and "Survivor" guru Mark Burnett announced "Destination Mir" in 2000, only to see the destination go away as the Mir space station crumbled. "Titanic" director James Cameron also announced plans to film a space mission, but it has yet to materialize.