You’d think Kevin Sorbo would want to stay in the here and now.
The actor spent most of the 1990s working in another country, playing a character from ancient Greece.
Now Sorbo is spending the start of the 21st Century in yet another country –albeit one closer to home –in a setting that is hundreds of years from now.
But his trip from the past to the future says a lot about the present state of often-underrated syndicated television and the growing importance of the Web in building audience attention.
“I keep getting these jobs,”Sorbo said with a sigh. “U.S. television, they keep giving me work, but they don’t want me to shoot in the United States.”
Sorbo, who starred in the syndicated “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys”(filmed in New Zealand), plays a starship captain in the syndicated series “Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda”(filmed in Canada). If “Andromeda’s”heavily trafficked Web site and the show’s penetration in the U.S. syndicated market are any gauges, this is one of the most anticipated shows of the season for sci-fi fans.
Premiering at 5 p.m. Saturday on WGN-Ch. 9, co-produced by Tribune Entertainment and based on an idea by the creator of “Star Trek,””Andromeda”stars Sorbo as Dylan Hunt, the last hope for a futuristic galaxy in turmoil after a civil war. But military leader Hunt missed that war when his ship, the Andromeda Ascendant, was sucked into a black hole, putting him in suspended animation.
Capt. Hunt’s vessel is pulled out of stasis 300 years later, and with everyone he’s ever known long dead, Hunt sets about reviving his former society.
“Since my time, life has gotten a lot harder. Civilization is in tatters. The strong prey on the weak. There is no justice, there’s no unity, there’s no law. I intend to change all that,”Hunt tells a group of mercenaries he recruits in the premiere episode.
Heady stuff for an actor whose previous series had him living in New Zealand, wearing leather pants and muscle- and chest-revealing shirts as Greek mythology’s half-man/half-god in a hugely successful series that ran six years and generated a loyal fan base, especially online.
After a two-hour “Hercules” TV movie in 1993 helped make Sorbo an international star, the actor made four more “Hercules” films, which led to the one-hour syndicated series in 1995. It was one of the most popular shows in syndication, sparking a renewed interest in an action-adventure format the networks had pretty much abandoned.
Sci-fi and action-adventure series remain a prime vehicle for syndicated television to carve out market share in the face of network and Internet competition. “Andromeda,” for example, will be seen in 98 percent of the country. It premiered in some other regions last weekend to favorable ratings. In New York, it came in second in its time slot to a New York Mets-San Francisco Giants playoff game.
“Syndication is certainly an important market, and it’s all about ratings,” said Bill Cella, executive vice president of broadcasting and programming for Universal McCann, the media arm of New York advertising agency McCann-Erickson Worldwide.
For a syndicated series to be successful, it has to be seen in as high profile a time slot as possible, which isn’t as easy as it used to be.
“The big thing is getting real estate,” Cella said. “The networks own their own shows now and are syndicating them . . . time periods are hard to come by.
” `Andromeda’ is a highly visible, action-oriented show that probably has big production costs. So it’s got to deliver big numbers to survive.”
An estimated 150 fan sites already exist on the Web. Using the “Star Trek” franchise as a model (and many “Andromeda” staffers are Trek veterans), that number could escalate rapidly once the show has launched nationwide.
“It’s certainly a place that people in this industry have to look at as a viable source to tap into potential viewers and potential customers for movies, whatever,” Sorbo said. “Without it, I don’t think `Blair Witch Project’ would have done what it would have done. So it was a conscious effort to go after the Internet people a long time ago.”
The official site, andromedatv.com, went up on the World Wide Web in May in an effort to get an early word out on what viewers can expect. (Slipstreamweb.com is one of the best unofficial sites, with a directory of other sites. It was launched this summer.)
“There’s simply nothing as strong or as powerful as peers’ talking about a television show. And when we can get them doing that in advance of a show’s going the air, we find that’s a very, very strong tool for us,” said Henry Urick, vice president of marketing for Tribune Entertainment, which produces “Andromeda.”
“Sci-fi is a little bit more intricate in story design. They’re looking to know more about the characters and more about the back story than, let’s say, a sitcom or a modern-day crime drama, because there’s just more to talk about.”
The site features the history of the series’ main story line, news about the show, streaming video from the series, photos and biographies of the cast, and highlights of upcoming episodes.
Urick said the site had 761,000 page views last month, a 50 percent increase over August.
Sorbo noted, “That’s pretty amazing for something that hasn’t even been on TV yet.”
“Hercules” and its syndicated spinoff, “Xena: Warrior Princess,” usually were one-two as the top shows in syndication. Both shows spawned everything from Web sites to action figures, with some of their influence being shown in such unlikely places as the World Wrestling Federation, where top female wrestler Chyna sports long, black Xena-like hair.
While “Hercules” and “Xena” (now in its sixth season) didn’t take themselves too seriously, “Andromeda” will be more sober in tone and texture, thanks in part to the lead character’s mission of re-creating the peaceful coexistence of his former life.
Fans of Roddenberry know the writer/producer always was optimistic about the future. It was no accident that “Star Trek’s” starship Enterprise was a hovering United Nations of different nationalities, cultures and species working together.
“Gene was a great visionary,” Sorbo said. “The future that he predicted, some of those things are happening. And it’s going to continue with this show, in terms of what his ideas from 1970 being translated to what’s going on in the year 2000, and what the writers are expanding on.”
Sorbo, 42, who has 20 years’ acting experience in such network shows as “Murder, She Wrote,” “The Commish” and “Cybill,” started looking for another show about 1 1/2 years ago when he knew “Hercules” was coming to an end.
“I wanted to keep in television because I like it,” he said. “I love what it offers actors in terms of a quicker response, a quicker return on your investment.”
Sorbo was looking for a series he hoped would get him back in America, working with an ensemble cast, and that didn’t have “Hercules'” grueling schedule. The native of Mound, Minn., who met his wife, Sam, when she guest-starred on “Hercules,” now is just off the border of the States — he shoots “Andromeda” in Vancouver, British Columbia, one of the reasons his new job is so attractive.
“It’s nicer to be closer to home,” the affable actor said while in Chicago for a promotional swing. “As beautiful as it was down there [in New Zealand], at least I’m in North America. I’ve got football and basketball and hockey all up there [in Vancouver] just like we’ve got here back in the good ol’ States. I don’t have to deal with cricket anymore.”
Sorbo had heard that Majel Barrett Roddenberry, widow of “Star Trek’s” creator and the executive producer of another syndicated series, “Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict,” was interested in meeting him about a concept her husband created some 30 years ago.
“I said, `Majel Roddenberry? Nurse Chapel of “Star Trek”?’ I said `yeah!'” Sorbo recalled. Soon after, a two-year, 44-episode commitment was made. (Since syndicated shows normally aim for a niche market, they do not aspire to the overall ratings networks require. They can make longer commitments, while an unsuccessful network show can get pulled in a hurry.)
Sorbo once again found himself in the sci-fi genre, which may seem strange. One would think his next role would be in the present — as a lawyer, doctor or policeman — after years of playing Hercules. “Part of the reason why I want to be an actor is to do things that most of us can’t do,” Sorbo said. “Sure, it would be fun to play a cop and be fun to be a real guy in a real TV show that deals in small-town USA or whatever it might be, if it’s set in modern times. But I am fulfilling all these fantasies that most of us have as kids.”
But because Sorbo also knows that he’s no longer playing the same character, he made some cosmetic changes.
Says grungy engineer Seamus Harper (Gordon Michael Woolvett) after meeting Capt. Hunt (in a bit of syndie-insider humor): “I’m telling you, this guy is huge. He’s like some kind of Greek god or something,”
Not too much like a god anymore. Sorbo, an avid weightlifter for more than 20 years, cut down on his regime considerably and lost 20 pounds of muscle. He also cut his Herc-length hair.
“The audience isn’t as fickle as Hollywood is,” Sorbo noted. “Hollywood puts on much bigger blinders and looks at you as one type of thing. `Well, this is all he can play, this is all he can do.'”
