NBC picks up its first pilot for 2014, a "Traffic-like" military conspiracy thriller

By Mike Vago | September 27, 2013 | 2:30pm

Aux Features TV

As NBC's fall season opens, the network is wasting no time looking ahead to 2014, ordering its first pilot for next year. Odyssey is a conspiracy drama created by the writing team of Adam Armus and Kay Foster, along with Thirtysomething actor Peter Horton. Armus and Foster were most recently writers for The Following, and have worked together for years on shows including Heroes, Birds Of Prey, and Xena: Warrior Princess. Horton will write and direct the pilot, and potentially do more episodes if the show gets picked up. He's specialized in directing pilots in recent years, having handled the openers for Ironside, Deception, The Philanthropist, and Dirty Sexy Money, but Odyssey will be his first writing gig.

The series is described as similar to the 2000 Steven Soderbergh film Traffic, following seemingly unrelated characters—a female soldier, a corporate attorney, and a political activist—who all find themselves up against a global conspiracy. Of course, the fun of following the series may well be guessing which of Armus and Foster's previous shows it will most closely resemble. Will it be a terrific buildup and then widespread disappointment like The Following? An involving show that falls apart after the first season like Heroes? Or like Birds Of Prey, and more or less every show on TV, will it suffer from a pronounced lack of Batman? (That one's pretty much assured.) The best-case scenario is probably that the show will match Xena's subtle blend of cheap special effects and homoerotic tension.