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Zap2it

by Brill Bundy
Zap2it, TV News

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Earlier this year, "Dark Angel" co-creator Charles "Chick" Eglee ("NYPD Blue", "Murder One") admitted that the sci-fi series was "routinely overbudget." Not surprising, seeing as how its other creator, James Cameron, helmed the most expensive movie ever made -- "Titanic" . Eglee also remarked that their overspending would most likely be a factor in whether or not the show would be renewed for a second season.

It was, and on Tuesday (July 17), Cameron downplayed the monetary concerns to Zap2it.

"'Routinely overbudget on the show' means that we're over by $10,000 to $20,000 an episode," says Cameron, waving it off as if the same amount drops from his pockets into the sofa cushions everytime he sits down. "There were some growing pains early in the season in terms of production, but we got that all ironed out."

In fact, the last seven episodes for the first season all managed to come in under budget, which undoubtedly pleased the number crunchers at FOX.

"Fiscally, the show's fine," Cameron continues. "Ratings wise, I think everybody hopes that we can come up a couple of points this season, and I don't know what the impact of the new time slot will be, whether that will be a plus or a minus."

"Dark Angel" will move from its Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET slot, where it duked it out opposite the WB's "Angel" last season, to Friday nights at 8 p.m. where it will serve as a lead in for the new dark soap opera "Pasadena." One of the potential downsides of this change being that Friday is a notoriously underwatched night of television, especially by the younger demographics "Dark Angel" courts.

"The show owns the narrow demographic of 18 to 24, which is the demographic that would be hurt the most at that time. Now, does that mean we broaden, that we now have access to kids who might have gone to bed by the nine o'clock slot on a Tuesday? Do we have access to stay-at-home young couples? I don't know what the issues are going to be there. We may go up, we may go down."

Playing to a new audience offers its own set of challenges. It means going in and tinkering with a show and making alterations about what seems to work and what could do with a little change. Cameron admits that at times he and Eglee don't always see eye-to-eye about how this can be accomplished.

"My instinct, because of my love for science fiction, is to go further in that direction," says Cameron. "Chick comes from a world of one-hour contemporary drama and he was insecure with science fiction going into it. I said, 'Look, that's an asset,' because we're going to go into it was a strong dramatic base for what intellectually you know is a science fiction show because it's happening in the future with all these strange elements."

"So, I think what we're going to do now that he's comfortable to do that, we're going to push the envelope and make it more of a science fiction show, without going into time travel and intelligent computers. Because the show's really not about technology, but bio-technology, and the ramifications of a genetically engineered future."