Sci Fi To Run Show with Mentalist Derren Brown, Bring Back Ghost Hunters
By Anne Becker -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/21/2007 12:09:00 PM
Sci Fi has paired with British mentalist Derren Brown for a six-part series. Also in the eerie realm, the network is bringing back its Ghost Hunters series for a fourth season and adding more episodes to its third.
Brown, who starred in specials and the six-part series Derren Brown: Mind Control on Britain's Channel 4 in 2000, will bring his mind-reading talents to Sci Fi this July. He claims to have no psychic ability, but in his shows he appears to predict and control human behavior with what he says is a "mixture of suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship," according to Sci Fi.
The yet untitled hour-long series is being made by independent British production company Objective Productions. Andrew O'Connor and Michael Vine will executive produce.Objective previously produced Brown's live theater tours.
Ghost Hunters, a series about paranormal-hunting plumbers, returns to Sci Fi with 13 new episodes next year. Sci Fi has also expanded its third season to include six new episodes this spring and six more in the fall. New episodes of the hour-long weekly show feature the pair, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, exploring Ireland's Lisheen Ruins, London's Jack the Ripper haunts, and other potentially supernatural-touched places.
The show's third season was its most-viewed, with more than one million viewers in the adults 18-49 and 25-54 demographics. For the second year, Sci Fi will run a Ghost Hunters Live special on Halloween night. Last year's six-hour special ran from 11 p.m. on All Hallows' Eve to 5 a.m. the next morning.
