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EXCLUSIVE: Star Trek veteran Ira Steven Behr has joined Syfy’s newly picked up series Alphas as executive producer/showrunner. Alphas, from BermanBraun, Universal Cable Prods. and writers Zak Penn and Michael Karnow, stars David Strathairn and follows a team of ordinary citizens who possess extraordinary and unusual mental skills. Behr will serve as an executive producer alongside Penn and BermanBraun’s Gail Berman, Lloyd Braun and Gene Stein. The series’ 90-minute pilot was directed by Lost director-producer Jack Bender. Behr has an extensive sci-fi background. He worked on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. On Deep Space Nine, he rose to executive producer/showrunner and wrote a total of 53 episodes, more than any other numbers. Behr also served as executive producer/showrunner on USA’s sci-fi drama The 4400 as well as on the second season of Starz’s series Crash, based on the Oscar-winning feature. Syfy had ordered 2 pilots set in the world of real-life superheros, Alphas and 3 Inches. Alphas has been picked up to series while 3 Inches is being reworked and remains in contention.
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The guy is a puzzle, his background says yay, but that what he done with second season of Crash was… He certeinly didn’t get the show.
what did he do?
made crap out of it that finale had like 0.07 mln ppl watching?
Ira is an amazing showrunner who truly loves writers. I was privileged to launch my career as a staff writer on Twilight Zone under his leadership. To this day, I still remember and follow the lessons he taught me about the industry and the dynamics of a successful writers’ room.
He is a class act, and I wish him tremendous success at Alphas.
“as well as on the Straz’s series Crash”
on the 2nd season.
Ira is a GREAT showrunner and writer… they are damned lucky to have gotten him. Hell, based solely on Ira’s participation, I will tune in to see what the show is about.
Agreed. He was the only person connected with a Star Trek franchise who seemed to get it. If he wasn’t hampered by the constraints of that universe and fandom, he could have probably created a much better show than DS9 was.
Be very interesting to see what he does with this show.
I can’t imagine how DS9 could have been better than it was in the last four seasons (or whenever the Klingons became part of the story).
“9 Inches” is being reworked? WHY? It’s the same show?Let it go SY-FY. Unless your just kissing Bob Coooper’s ass. 2 super-hero show’s?? Not needed. “Alpha’s” won…they lost. NEXT. you don’t beat David Straithern in the lead or in anything.
Three Inches isn’t the same show and even if it were similar have you forgotten about all the DIFFERENT versions of Law and Order, CSIs, etc. that have gone on to be somewhat successful.
Behr is a badass.
That is all.
Behr’s run on Deep Space Nine was the best TV iteration of Star Trek besides the original (yes, better than your precious TNG). Will check out Alphas on his name alone.
Super nice guy. Work with him on Crash. Not a great show runner but then again I think he was out of element with that show. I think Sy-Fy is a better fit. I wish him luck.
SyFy is dead to me. Too many canceled series, crappy movies, reality shows that suck and for God’s sake, wrestling. I will never take a chance on a new series on SyFy again. I will wait until they cancel it and watch it on Hulu.
Does SyFy even do Science Fiction anymore? Even Eureka seems more defined these days by magic (Warehouse 13 crossover) than science. Maybe they should change the name again, this time to ‘PhantaC.’
But when are we going to be able to see Three Inches as a 1 hour show? James Marsters’ and Kyle Schmid’s fans want to know. We’re begging you to give us a one hour show when a lot of fans are jumping ship.
Six years ago, I was working in Vancouver on series for Ira when my father died suddenly. We weren’t close but still, I pretty much lost it, couldn’t put one foot in front of the other, couldn’t decide what to do, where to go. “Hey — you’re in a foreign country, shooting a TV episode guest-starring Wayne Wright, okay? Anything you do is gonna be cool.” That’s Ira. He made me laugh; he gave me confort. Yeah, as a writer/showrunner, he’s the shit. But nobody in this business is a better, more decent human being. Get after it, buddy boy.
Michael Angeli
Congrats, Ira. What you did, as the showrunner, with Twilight Zone was nothing short of miraculous. It was the most challenging series (44 half/hours in one season) on UPN. You, along with several other professionals, managed to pull it off brilliantly. Best wishes, for your success on ALPHA.
I was wondering, We at Kyle schmid facebook fan page, that you were going to air the pilot for his new TV series, Three Inches, also, at the same time, there was talk about a show called being human; well why is being human getting ready to air before three inches? I am confused, US Fans want to see Three Inches as and hour long show; can we get what we were promised two months ago. (Kyle Schmid, starring in Three Inches, ON syfy)
Ira Steven Behr is the father of politically insightful science fiction through his work on DS9. Although Michael Piller and Rick Berman were willing to allow it, Behr crafted something whose relevance became that much more evident in the post-9/11 world than it seemed in the ’90s to me as a pro-American high school student, even though he obviously knew more about human nature and the need to be skeptical about “our side” than I or most of the mainstream media did.
He not only allowed his writers to explore dramatic realism but the political situation of our world. He touched on identity politics through Odo feeling torn between the “solids”, the society that was less than welcoming to him as an immigrant, and his fellow changelings, whom he felt had unnecessarily waged war out of understandable insecurity; the causes of terrorism via Kira’s background in Bajoran resistance, the Maquis, including Michael Eddington and Kassidy Yates, and the eventual Cardassian resistance led by Damar; the brutality and repression of occupation (Weyoun’s line about the Dominion’s presence on DS9 “not being an occupation” could be ripped from any American or Israeli nationalist’s mouths); the fact that conflict often doesn’t arise out of an inevitable confrontation between good and evil, but nations’ conflicting interests and consequent perspectives via the Changelings whose persecution complex made them prioritize control and obtaining a buffer zone over human rights much like Israel or Stalin’s Soviet Union and via Gul Dukat whose good aspects allowed us to see how a war criminal’s own followers might see his charm and not recognize the evil of his acts (It is said Pol Pot was a great father, as seems George W. Bush); a skepticism of even our greatest heroes’ preparedness to stand for principles in war time via Sisko’s desperation to use faulty intelligence to bring the Romulans into the war and his tacit support of the Federation’s genocide of the Changelings; and, finally, a skepticism of unfettered capitalism as expressed in his hilarious and thought-provoking Ferengi episodes.
On “The 4400″, Behr fought to explore many of these same themes in the show’s third and fourth seasons. Furthermore, the latter saw him use the War on Promicin as an allegory for the War on Terror and War on Drugs, though not always successfully. That season’s central conflict emanated from the opposing world views of the elitist Marked’s preference for capitalist materialism and hierarchy in a coming world of scarce resources (very much echoed in George W. Bush and Dick Cheney’s treatment of those inside and outside America) and Jordan Collier’s socialist movement to empower the weak and bring equality by giving the world 4400 abilities, through dictatorial coercion if need be. Heady stuff and often exciting, too.
Although Behr takes several episodes (more than 1 season and perhaps even 2, if the seasons are short) to take his dramas to their dramatic and political potential, he always delivers the goods. That’s why “The 4400″‘s first 2 seasons weren’t nearly as good as the last 2 and why his management of “Crash” 2nd season was unsatisfying, although I’ve not heard any critic defend its first season under Glen Mazzara. In a world of short-attention span apolitical TV critics, especially among the sci fi community, his work often goes unappreciated because it requires patience, but is ultimately much more appreciated — as I’m sure “The 4400″ is now than the once popular, commercial cheat of “Heroes” that NBC Universal preferred to keep on the air instead.
For the sake of our world and also smart, fun entertainment that preserves dramatic coherence, I hope he’s given the full leeway Syfy has given its other shows in making challenging political commentary, unlike so many other lousy networks that censor their artists from offending the powers that be. For what its worth, I’ll tune in!
You could argue this is a CSI meets X-Files type of show and I sincerly hope it does well since I’ve enjoyed a lot of Mr Behr’s programmes when their shown over on this side of the pond.
A word of warning however. It might be a tough sell though to convince a jaded American public that ScyFi is something to look out for.
On TV there seems to be a run from any thing that looks like it won’t grab an immediate audience. With Executives scrambling to deliver ratings winners it’s just too easy to say no to anything that looks outside the box so anything intresting gets replaced by a series of dire easy on the brain stuff like musicals [glee] and our own awful contribution to the demise of your culture Simon [boo hiss] Cowell’s X-Factor.
Frankly, Syfy channel now bores me. I tuned into Alphas with hope and then read that Brent Spiner would be on and I was ecstatic! So what do they do? Put him in dorky glasses, a Perry Como sweater and tie and he actually makes it work–I’m thinking–wow, the psych and the Spiner character may have an ongoing tenacious working relationship–this has great potential! Then they kill him off! Don’t they realize that women of all ages find him very sexy at 62-he’s fit, funny, has gorgeous blue eyes and I would watch him every night of the week! Doesn’t anyone notice all the attention even the very young women give him at the cons? Just put him back into his trademark Polo shirts and black jackets, contacts or at least cool glasses, give him some scripts with a little humor–even deadpan humor and you have a goldmine! He was the glue that held Star Trek TNG together–Stewart was good, but became pedantic and boring. Spiner always surprises! Bring him back somehow in
Something!!!! Alphas would be nice.