Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore developing one of this year's half-dozen Western TV shows
While movie studios continue to reject most movies featuring cowboys until this summer blows over, television seems oddly intent on reviving the Western, with networks both broadcast and cable suddenly snapping up anything that sounds vaguely grizzled. One of the first to lead that charge was Battlestar Galactica producer Ronald D. Moore, who last year began developing a remake of the steampunk touchstone Wild Wild West that seemed destined for a pickup until everyone started posting links to this Will Smith video. With that project in an apparent holding pattern, Moore has now moved on to ABC’s Hangtown, a Western spin on the CSI-style procedural in which a lawless town’s crimes are solved by a marshal who relies on his instincts, a snooty East Coast doctor who enthusiastically embraces the new field of forensics, and a young female writer who’s attempting to turn their stories into dime-store novels. Bet she's brash!