Surface
(9/2005 - 2/2006)



Airs: Canceled - 8pm/7pm (c), Mondays (NBC)

DVD releases:

The Complete First Season (8/15/2006) [Buy It]

Premise:

Surface (previously called Fathom) is an action-adventure drama from writers-directors Josh and Jonas Pate. The pilot is described as being in the vein of James Cameron's The Abyss and revolves around mysterious creatures deep in the ocean. The series centers on the discovery of a new form of sea life that could be a species of invaders from the planet Venus.

Lake Bell (Boston Legal, Miss Match) will play the female lead, a marine biologist who discovers the creatures. Rade Serbedzija, Leighton Meester (Tarzan), and Carter Jenkins (Unfabulous) have also joined the cast. The twin Pate brothers (The Grave, Deceiver, L.A. Dragnet) wrote the pilot script and will direct and executive produce the pilot.

News: (05/15/06) - NBC has confirmed that Surface has been canceled.

(11/09/05) - According to The Hollywood Reporter, NBC Universal has struck a deal with DirecTV to allow viewers to pay video-on-demand to watch current prime-time series hours after they air for free, including Surface and Battlestar Galactica.

NBC will be charging 99 cents per commercial-free episode. This news coincides with a similar announcement from CBS and Comcast and a rumored deal between ABC and Apple's iPod.

(10/17/05) - According to Variety, NBC has picked up a full season of Surface, which has been improving in the ratings on Monday nights. Ratings among adults 18-49 have grown 17 percent between its Sept. 26 debut and its most recent airing on Oct. 10. To date, the series averages a 3.3 rating among adults 18-49 and 10 million viewers.

(9/19/05) - Co-star Jay R. Ferguson told SCI FI Wire that the show has fantastic elements, but he doesn't think it is true science fiction. "To me, sci-fi is Star Trek or Star Wars," Ferguson said. "This is almost like something that could be real. You think of a new species popping up in the ocean, and if you saw that in the headlines of today's paper, you wouldn't be that shocked. It's very, very likely, in fact, that there are several species and several animals that we have yet to see that are in the deep depths of the ocean."

Decribes the series as "speculative fiction." "To me, even as a sci-fi fan, speculative fiction sounds so much more interesting," he said. "That gets me more excited, because to me, I think the so-called sci-fi movies that I have enjoyed so much have been the ones that have really made me wonder, 'Wow, that could actually happen.' Those are the ones that I love the most. So for this sci-fi fan, speculative fiction sounds much more exciting."

Ferguson's storyline makes up one-third of the series, which also stars Lake Bell and Carter Jenkins. "I suppose that while you have Lake's character, that's the brain, and Carter's character, who's kind of the heart, my character is kind of the muscle," Ferguson said. "Everyone in the story is affected in a different way, driven by their own set of circumstances. And my set of circumstances are grown out of, or birthed out of, a hatred and a kind of need for truth and closure from the result of my brother being taken. And that is certainly what drives me to find out what's going on and what, if any, truth there is to be found."

(9/09/05) - Lake Bell, who plays marine biologist Laura Daughtery, told SCI FI Wire that the shows creature will be seen more frequently than viewers might expect. "I sort of thought [creators Josh and Jonas Pate] would be a little more hush-hush and sort of coy and teasing about seeing certain things, seeing the actual creature," Bell said. "They're kind of excited to have the first sort of digital character in a TV show. They want it to exist as something. Our technology in film and television has advanced so drastically that we can do stuff like that now."

"We're going to be a little daring with it," she said. "It's a gutsy thing to kind of do that every week, but they're ready to take on the challenge, because they feel that the technology is high enough right now, and they have such a clear idea of what they want down to the detail. They want to show the audience a little more than you expect. We're going to see it."

What is the mysterious origin of these creatures? "I think [the Pate brothers] try to keep everything kind of mysterious for us as well, because we don't read anything or know anything beyond the episode we're working on," she said. "They love to throw curve balls. I'm reading these scripts, and I'm like, 'Whoa!' ... That's how I'm finding out more and more. That's why it's very exciting on script day, when the new scripts come out. Everyone's like, 'Oh, my God.'"

(7/27/05) - Co-creators (and twin brothers) Jonas and Josh Pate said that their series will differ from the other new fall SF series. "I don't know if this is their focus, but our focus is big, family popcorn adventure that an eight year old can watch with his grandfather," Josh said in a presentation at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. "We want to have a big tent. We want to focus on adventure, not horror. We want suspense, not gore. We're an 8 o'clock show; they're 10 o'clock shows. Especially as more episodes come out, I think the difference in the DNA in the shows will be pretty apparent."

Josh agreed that the increase of SF genre shows is due in part to the success of ABC's Lost, the increasing popularity of DVD releases of television shows, and the resurgence in genre shows to improvements in special-effects technology. "I've seen some kind of comparisons to the success of Lost," he said. "I think that's valid. I think the business of TV is changing slightly, and that serialized shows make more economic sense, the first one being 24. What it's really about is a serialized show, and then that lends itself to this genre pretty well. So I think that's what's really driving the networks' openness to this type of storytelling."

"Creatively, this is something we've been wanting to do for several years," he said. "But both with the improvement of the technology and the special effects, and with the networks being more open to this kind of storytelling, we realized that we might have a chance with a show like this this season."

As for whether the sea creatures in the show are extraterrestrial, neither brother would say. "I've seen a lot of stuff on the Web about theories about where it's from," he said. "Nothing I've seen on the Web is anywhere close to accurate."

(6/30/05) - NBC Universal Television Studio's series Surface (formerly Fathom) has issued a casting call to North Carolina residents of all ages and ethnicities to be paid background extras in this upcoming SF series. Open casting calls will take place July 2, 9 and 16 in Jacksonville, Wilmington and Myrtle Beach in North Carolina. Those interested are invited to meet with an extras casting director. If unable to attend a casting event, applicants can e-mail or mail a photo and contact information, including name, age, phone number and e-mail address to the extras casting department.

Casting takes place on July 2 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Jacksonville Mall in Jacksonville, on July 9 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Westfield Independence Mall in Wilmington and on July 16 from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Broadway at the Beach in Myrtle Beach. For information, write Extras Casting, Surface Productions, 1223 N. 23rd St., Wilmington, N.C. 28405, call (910) 772-5667 or e-mail at wilmcasting@yahoo.com.

Cast:

Lake Bell as Daughtery Carstarphen
Bobby Coleman as Jesse
Jay R. Ferguson as Richard Owen
Carter Jenkins as Miles
Leighton Meester as Savannah
Rade Serbedzija as Dr. Aleksander Cirko

Crew:

Josh Pate - Creator, Executive Producer
Jonah Pate - Creator, Executive Producer


Episode List

Episode #Prod #Original
Air Date		 Episode Title
 
 
Season One
1. 1-110119-Sep-2005 Episode 1
2. 1-210226-Sep-2005 Episode 2
3. 1-310303-Oct-2005 Episode 3
4. 1-410410-Oct-2005 Episode 4
5. 1-517-Oct-2005 Episode 5
6. 1-624-Oct-2005 Episode 6
7. 1-707-Nov-2005 Episode 7
8. 1-814-Nov-2005 Episode 8
9. 1-921-Nov-2005 Episode 9
10. 1-1028-Nov-2005 Episode 10
11. 1-1102-Jan-2006 Episode 11
12. 1-1209-Jan-2006 Episode 12
13. 1-1323-Jan-2006 Episode 13
14. 1-1430-Jan-2006 Episode 14
15. 1-1506-Feb-2006 Episode 15





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