Starhunter: Short-Lived Canadian Show Returns As A Webseries
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With all the sequels, prequels, and reboots (Oh my!) of such high-profile franchises as Godzilla and The Terminator, one wonders why more lesser-known but still beloved properties aren’t being brought back out of the woodwork. After all, shouldn’t it be just as important to bring new audiences to cult projects as it is to maintain a well-known property’s mainstream audiences? Well, fans of the short-lived Canadian sci-fi series Starhunter will (probably) be very pleased to learn that it will soon be resurrected as a web series, and will be popping up a few other places as well. It may be frustrating to some that the show, which has gained something of a cult following of the years, isn’t coming back to an actual network, but this could always lead to that, should its popularity carry over.
The Toronto-based creative studio Starfield Indie recently acquired the worldwide rights to Starhunter from Green Opal, and the series’ original creators, Daniel D’or and Philip Jackson, will again be working with writer Nelu Ghiran in figuring out how to bring the show to today’s audiences. Starting in November of this year, their plans are to produce 26 webisodes, ranging from 8 to 15 minutes each.
The series’ 22-episode first season/incarnation aired in Canada back in 2001, and followed a group of bounty hunters traveling in a refurbished luxury spaceship in the year 2075. It starred Michael, Tanya Allen, Claudette Roche, Murray Melvin, and Stephen Marcus, and the plots were mostly mission-based, with subplots involving a crewmember’s missing son as well as one of them working for a secret organization. Oddly enough, when the series returned for another 22 episodes in 2003, the first season was largely ignored and retconned, with only Paré and Marcus reprising their roles. The show’s creators eventually left mid-season due to differences with the parent company, and no third series ever came to being, even though there was much interest at the time, as the second season gained steam towards its cliffhanger ending.
Interestingly enough, the crew of the Tulip’s adventures won’t end with the webseries, as there are also plans to turn the franchise into an online video game. Four graphic novel tie-ins are planned as well, to be penned by David Tischman, who has written for comic series such as Star Trek, Bite Club, and the excellent American Century. Fans will be happy to learn that Starfield Indie will also be releasing high-def versions of the original series on Blu-ray at some point in the future. Hopefully they’ll get released on some streaming services as well.
Below you can check out the opening theme to the second season, commonly known as Starhunter 2300, which was taken from a Peter Gabriel song.
