Rewind

Syfy Drops Time-Travel Show Rewind

The network has passed on the new TV series … and already aired the pilot.

Syfy Channel won’t send its time-travel pilot Rewind to series, the network officially confirmed today via Twitter.

It’s no surprise, seeing as the pilot shot in the spring of 2012 and the network has been conspicuously silent on the project since its completion. What is surprising is that Syfy has already burned off the pilot as a 2-hour movie. It aired Monday, August 26, with little fanfare and next to no advertising. (I, for one, was looking forward to seeing the show and had no idea it was going to be on.)

Rewind stars Shane McRae as an ex-Special Forces operative who joins a secret government division that uses experimental time travel technology to attempt to undo major world catastrophes — an idea not far off from Seven Days, which ran for three seasons on UPN (1998-2001).

The pilot burn-off is becoming common practice for Syfy, which has done the same with the pilot for Three Inches and Battlestar Galactica‘s spin-off Blood & Chrome.

In fact, Syfy doesn’t have all that great a track record with the pilot process itself. Most of the cable channel’s successful original scripted series started with a script and a full season order, including the forthcoming Helix, Defiance, and all three Stargate series.

Two other scripted series are currently at the pilot production stage for Syfy: Dominion, based on the angel warrior movie Legion; and High Moon, based on the 1969 John Christopher novel The Lotus Caves.

Read More: Syfy’s Rewind: Three Things We Loved

Buy Rewind now on Amazon Instant Video!

Darren

Darren is a fan of all things science fiction, and founded the popular Stargate website GateWorld in 1999, followed by SciFi Stream in 2007. He lives in the Seattle area.

151 thoughts on “Syfy Drops Time-Travel Show <I>Rewind</I>

  • The problem is that SYFY channel has done this so often that no one is watching the channel,so when they air something that might make a good seris,they get no viewership and think that it’s no good and go back to reality shows.

    Reply
  • David Richards

    They dropped Rewind from series and yet they produced shows like Alphas! Don’t figure!

    Reply
  • David spencer

    I just watch rewind pilot on YouTube. If they made it into a series I would watch it.

    Reply
  • Ever since The SciFi channel changed to SyFy there has been less and less Science fiction movies or shows. Showing the WE is just one of the examples. I was one who saw Rewind when it aired on the SciFi network, and I saw it again today; 6/20/2014 on http://www.youtube.com/ . I enjoyed it very much. But it seem that us viewers opinions mean less every day :'(

    Reply
  • it´s a huge project and travel thru time it´s more complex than show in the pilot… we can´t predict all the variables with short time to make a right decision or the decision who affects in the wrong way… it´s to complex…

    Reply
  • Shame it was canceled I really enjoyed rewind time travel pilot, was wanting to know what that officer changed.

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  • dazed and concerned

    it is often a wonder to me .. just who is deciding what to air and what they think we want to see? i am believing that their programming committee is intentionally desiring to stupefy their user base. we are for the most part a slice through the intellectual elite of the world that uses this media to for a short time escape the bonds of conventional reality and fantasize about the possible futures we can create.. this network seems to have delved into the occult and placated the masses with conflicting religious dogmas .. if i wanted that i would have tuned to any number of religious channels and would have been happy to be told that i cannot be more than i am.. the futuristic sifi is what drives me to bring to present what the dreamers can conceive… and use that creative insight to test the physics of the present .. to actually push the boundaries a little farther down the road..
    currently this network has obviously decided to forgo the future and abandon us while it drives itself into a decent into depression and despair.. i say replace the management and restore the optimism that this network once had. it is time for a consumer revolt… to restore teh dream that was in the beginning of this network.. down with syfy .. long live scifi…

    Reply
  • It on air right now in Italy, and I wanted to know more… so here I am. I was going to buy the 1st Season… but unfortunately there’s no 1st season :-((

    Reply
  • Enrique Sanchez

    There IS a reason why I REFUSE to watch SYFY anymore. It is no longer producing intelligent television. REWIND’s demise is an prime example. What POSSESSED these pseudo-gurus to stop it’s complete development is beyond all measure of reason.

    Reply
  • Dread73

    Over 1 000 000 views on Youtube since January, that’s some impressive numbers that TV Execs should take notice of. One of them was mine, just now – enjoy it a lot and can’t believe they passed on this given some of the absolute drivel they have picked up …

    Tidy up some of the writing and get this series on air!

    Reply
  • Me too watched it on youtube, this morning it was my second time.
    Dissapointing news that there will be no series.
    I also watch stargate sg1, even if I know the characters will always survive, and come home safely every episode (sort of).

    This could be a great show too, and yes….. Where did this officer go to?
    Cold and snow? Moscow, to shoot putin? Starting a nuclear war because he lost his wife and or child by russians?

    The complete city dissapearing again, so YES!!!!! I want to see more!!!

    Reply
  • Tushy Luvscox

    I’m afraid my comment won’t either make the Rewind TV show be a reality. I also watched it and found it really cool. Like Pinkel I’m also dissapointed that the pilot film didn’t make it into a full series, but as an ‘standalone’ film does its job pretty well, which may help to take it to the cult film sphere, somehow.

    Reply
  • Science Fiction Fan

    I watched Rewind again just the other day, on YouTube. Maybe YouTube should consider starting it’s own series based on it, since syfy has no interest in it.

    btw, the FY part of SYFY stands for “Fantasy”, which most Sci-Fi fans could not care less about….

    shame that they killed REWIND even before it had a chance, and btw they cannot take credit for the Stargate Series either, that was fan built and promoted on showtime I think before sci/fy picked it up.

    Reply
  • gotstik

    I just watched the Rewind pilot on YouTube, and like the other posters here have already stated, found the show to be very intriguing and well made. The show to me seemed to be a lot along the vein of the original Stargate SG1 and Sliders series(s), with a potentially bottomless source of colorful episode material to choose from – as well as a collection of interesting characters to root for. Unfortunate this show won’t be given the chance to grow itself into something.

    Reply
  • Staazvaind

    just seen it on youtube and think its good. syfy will loose customers this way. wont forgive them canceling stargate (any sequel) anyway. others will come and take syfys place. they should measure views by internet. to hell with syfy.

    Reply
  • Scott

    Like all the rest of the posts…very disappointed in SIFFY for cancelling this. They could have given it a season one — Even FireFly got that. So we get stuck with things like Agents of Shield et.al. instead of intelligent scifi…

    Reply
  • Kathryn

    just finished watching “Rewind”, and am sooo disappointed this was not made into a series!! I love time travel stories – and don’t we have enough detective drama’s to choose from; same old, same old – making this program something different to tune into. The entire pilot was so well done too; from the acting to the set designs, to the writing. You really believed as you watched that the characters were being transported back in time. I agree with some of the comments posted; does anyone of the “powers that be” from the SYFY channel actually read our comments and know that their are viewers out there who love this show! It could not have been advertised properly though “back then”, since I didn’t even know about it until today, almost 2 years later. I would have watched this, had I known about it’s existence when it first aired! PLEASE RECONSIDER MAKING THIS INTO A SERIES…!! PLEASE!

    Reply
  • I just watched the Rewind pilot and was impressed with most things about it: plot, acting, etc which is more than I can say about some of SyFy’s other offerings … and I really wanted to know what the disaster was they would have to remove in the next episode. After reading some of the other comments, I agree with the loss of direction that seems to have occurred in SyFy, but they are not alone – one example is the Brits cancelling the award-winning and awesome “The Fades”.

    Reply
  • Harold

    I was looking for something new in the way of “time travel” for a movie or new TV show, and found “Rewind.” I was just as disappointed as many of you were about it not becoming a series. I guess the ending of the movie was the ending of beginning the series. The guy went back in time to the ice age to eradicate all mankind.

    Reply
  • Dwayne Theriot

    It’s not a sci-fi channel anymore. It’s a bunch of B-movies about monsters and bull that nobody wants to watch. I for one would have loved to see Rewind as a series.

    Reply
  • I’ve watched rewind and found it very engaging the storyline is great as
    a sci-fi t v series, the pilot episode was great, the producers and actors
    should not give-up hope on this time travel project, remember back in the
    60s era the late gene Roddenberry had submitted his pilot episode ‘star trek ‘the cage’ and it was rejected, until he submitted another pilot titled
    ‘where no man has gone before’ as you know the rest is history.

    Reply
  • Marc-André Séguin

    Syfy please bring Rewind back to tv. Either restart airing it and producing it on tv, or cut a deal with Netflix. I just watched the pilot and it really made me want to keep watching. I was disappointed to hear that you had put a stop to it and would really urge you to reconsider putting it on the air. I can guarantee that you will get many viewers interested in the show if you just give it at least a one season probationary contract. I would love to see you follow through with this. I can really see myself anxious week to week to see the next episode.

    Reply
  • Thomas Pritchard

    I finally watched this pilot and was amazed. It should be a series. There is so many story lines to pursue.

    Reply
  • I agree Syfy is a garbage channel with a bunch on B-movies. Rewind would have been an awesome tv series. It’s all garbage now. The last awesome series was Stargate!

    Reply

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