M. Night Shyamalan working on a miniseries for Fox in which nothing is as it seems, repeatedly

By Sean O'Neal | January 8, 2013 | 9:23pm

Aux Features TV

As part of its renewed effort to launch more long-form "event" series—essentially dramas whose limited runs should help prevent them from inevitably falling apart after finally reaching their reveal—Fox has drafted a man who knows all about structuring things around a big climax and then not really worrying about much else: M. Night Shyamalan, who will executive produce Wayward Pines for the network as a 10-to-12-part series that may debut in 2014. Based on the Twin Peaks-inspired novel Pines by Blake Crouch, the equally Twin Peaks-inspired show concerns a Secret Service agent investigating the disappearance of two colleagues in a lovely yet creepy Idaho town that—in the obligatory mention of a Twist™—is not as it seems. (It's actually more of a hamlet.)

Its chief competition this development season is Fox's other "event" acquisition, Blood Brothers, with Band Of Brothers writer Bruce C. McKenna revisiting familiar themes and the word "brothers" with his series about a West Point class torn apart by the Civil War, where brother fought brother and they were often heard to exclaim, "Damn, brother, I thought we were brothers!" The Twist™ on that show: They were brothers the whole time.