Sci Fi Orders 'Unfinished Business' Backdoor Pilot

Posted at 2:10 p.m. ET

Sci Fi has commissioned a backdoor pilot about the an ex-cop who can communicate with the dead. Unfinished Business is penned by Sally Robinson, who also wrote Iron Jawed Angels, and produced by James Lassiter, Will Smith and Ken Stovitz's Overbrook Entertainment.

Mikael Salomon (Band of Brothers, The Andromeda Strain) is attached to direct. Robinson and Salomon will serve as executive producers.

Unfinished Business centers on a former cop who sustains a brain injury after which he acquires powers to communicate with the dead -- and help them resolve their "unfinished business" with the living.

The announcement comes on the heels of record breaking tune-in last week for the fifth season premiere of Sci Fi's reality franchise Ghost Hunters, which has two Rhode Island plumbers ostensibly rooting out ghosts in people's homes and businesses.

Sci Fi also aired self-described psychic John Edward's Crossing Over, in which Edward claimed to talk to the dead relatives of the people in his studio audience. Edward, and those like him, were also the inspiration for Simon Baker's character on The Mentalist. The CBS drama stars Baker as a reformed TV psychic and snake oil salesman who uses his finely honed powers of observation to help the police solve murders.