FX adapting Star Trek spoof novel Redshirts as limited series

By Mike Vago | February 10, 2014 | 6:45pm

Aux Features TV

In 2012, John Scalzi's sci-fi novel Redshirts introduced us to crew members of a 25th-century starship who realize that not only are they actually characters on a sci-fi TV show, they're those expendable extras who are doomed to die on every mission, existing only to up the dramatic stakes for the main characters. Now Scalzi's novel is being adapted for television by veteran sitcom director Ken Kwapis (who's helmed everything from The Office finale to episodes of The Larry Sanders Show, to films including He's Just Not That Into You and Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants).

Redshirts will be a limited series for FX, most likely airing in 2015. In the accompanying press release Kwapis throws out the inevitable dash of pretension by comparing the novel's "hyper-meta" narrative to experimental novelist Jorge Luis Borges—when in literary terms, the book's concept is probably closer to the legion of stand-up comics who have wondered aloud what the deal is with those guys in the red uniforms. Still, the book was well-received, and FX has a good track record with original series, so there's every reason to anticipate this one.