Will you watch? Electric City Preview: Tom Hanks' Animated Sci-Fi Series

Tom Hanks may be one of the biggest movie stars on the planet but the
actor is certainly no stranger when it comes to TV series. The two-time
Academy Award winner got his big break on the small-screen with Bosom Buddies.
Since then, Hanks has been sure to keep busy by producing an Emmy
and/or Golden Globe winning series every couple of years - including From The Earth To The Moon, Band of Brothers, John Adams and The Pacific
- but his upcoming TV projects seem to suggest a bit of a different
direction, namely, away from historical dramas and into some genre
fiction.




So the superstar still has another historical drama in development with K Blows Top
(a mini-series focused on Nikkita Khrushchev's visit to the USA in
1959, with Paul Giammatti in talks to star) but his other two are
definitely a change of pace. One is a highly anticipated adaptation of
Neil Gaiman's fantasy novel "American Gods" and the other finds Hanks
producing an animated series for distribution on the web. Hanks wrote,
and will star in, the upcoming sci-fi series Electric City set to air exclusively on Yahoo! later this month. Here's the first teaser...









Well, they know how to sell the show to me with "Camera Obscura" being
on the first visual cues in the teaser trailer. The term comes from the
Latin for 'dark chamber' but, in this instance, it may be a reference to
the cultural text by Roland Barthes. Electric City is already
getting my philosophical gears turning plus the noirish undertones and
old-school animation also put this pretty high on my must-see list. The
futuristic tale seems similar to many other dystopian texts ("1984" the
obvious comparison) where the last bastion of hope, Electric City, "a symbol of peace and security," isn't as it seems. Mystery, danger, violence, science-fiction... What more could you want?




Electric City is set to feature 20 episodes running between five
and seven minutes, with the first ten premiering on Yahoo! on Tuesday,
July 17 with the remaining spread out over the next two days, Wednesday
the 18 and Thursday the 19. There will also be a single, full version
available sometime in the future. Electric City was created by
and stars (the voice of) Tom Hanks. Joining him on the mic are Jeanne
Tripplehorn, Holland Taylor, Ginnifer Goodwin, Paul Scheer, Chris
Parnell and June Diane.