TVSquad

Alphas -- a science fiction/action pilot that certainly has nothing to do with Heroes on NBC -- just got picked up by Syfy. The network would also like to assure you that their new show has nothing to do with Heroes.

The 90-minute adventure has been kicking around Hollywood for a couple years now. Alphas tells the story of "a team of ordinary citizens who possess hyperdeveloped neurological abilities."

That sounds nothing like Heroes at all -- which is fortunate because Syfy is a member of the NBC/Universal family of networks.

Hey, it looks like all that time the strike has allowed network executives to rethink the industry may actually lead to some positive changes after all. NBC's president/CEO Jeff Zucker explained how the struggling net is changing its whole strategy on television.

The days of the $10 million dollar mini-movie pilot, which bears no resemblance to later episodes done for less than $100,000 each, appear to be over at NBC. Instead, more series will be committed to based on script treatments alone, and rather than make sixty-two pilots and throw them all at the wall, they'll focus on maybe five or six. And you can forget about the lavish "upfronts" where they unveil a circus cavalcade of wasted money ... and their new pilots. Cable's been doing it this way for years. Now let's analyze where the most talked about shows on television are being broadcast.